Supervention
by FunkyFish1991
Summary: POST SERIES: Evil does not die - and the Legion is still needed. But nothing is as easy as it seems, and after being given what should have been a simple assigment, the heroes are sucked into a twisted web of plots that threaten everything they know.
1. If Everyone Cared I

**Oh yes, I did it. I kinda had to... my muse was going crazy.**

**Set after the second season.**

**I, like the writers of the _Legion of Super Heroes _animated show, am taking multiple liberties with characters, events, storylines and timelines. My only experience of the Legion comes with the show, so if any of you have comments about the incorrect portrayal of any characters or something like that... please correct me. Also, if you have any suggestions for this on-going story, let me know!**

**_The Big Warning_: Rated T so I can do whatever I want without having to lose readers. That will mostly likely involve death, moderate gore, moderate swearing, and -le gasp- romance (lots of boy/girl as well as minor slash, so consider yourself warned if you loathe either! XD).**

**I'll be giving more specific warnings at the start of each chapter. Example:**

**_Warning_: This chapter contains lurve and cuteness. Beware.**

**Also, I am a complete fan of PriestessOfNox's fics as well as those of several other LoSH writers on this site, so if you recognize things in my story that connect with theirs, don't be too surprised. I'm doing it on purpose!**

**_Disclaimer_: I don't own LoSH, Superman or anything to do with DC. Oddly enough, DC does.**

**Onwards!**

* * *

**_Supervene: To come or occur as something extraneous, additional, or unexpected._**

* * *

**_.: Part 1 - If Everyone Cared :._**

From underneath the trees, we watch the sky  
Confusing stars with satellites  
I never dreamed that you'd be mine  
But here we are, we're here tonight

_-: If Everyone Cared, Nickelback_

* * *

ONE

* * *

**.: 15 February, 3063 :.**

* * *

"Saturn Girl!"

The blonde looked up from the holopad on her lap in surprise. The early morning Legion HQ had been pretty quiet up until that point, so the shrillness of the shout that was still echoing through the hallways had made the young woman jump in her seat.

"Phantom Girl?"

She stood, setting the little holopad on her beside table, and walked over to the door as the sound of approaching footsteps became audible in the corridor.

"Saturn Girl, come quick! We need you!"

The black-and-white cloaked Legionnaire skidded into view a few seconds later; practically dancing to a stop in front of the other woman with wide-eyed panic written all over her face.

"She's missing – we can't find her anywhere!"

Comprehension dawned quickly and Saturn Girl found herself right behind Phantom Girl as the latter took off soaring once more down the hallways.

"Who knows?"

"Everyone! I have everybody who's conscious looking for her!"

"Does he know yet?"

"Nuh uh. Cham's trying to find him to keep him busy, but I don't know how long that'll work. We have to find her – now!"

Saturn Girl frowned in concern as they rounded a sharp corner. "I hope we're not too late."

She closed her eyes, probing the air inside the headquarters, sorting through all the consciousnesses and thoughts she could feel, pouring through them all and pushing them aside as she searched for the mind she needed most.

--

"Triplicate Girl?"

Lightning Lad's shout boomed through the hallways as he flew rapidly around another corner – only to bump straight into Bouncing Boy and be thrown a couple dozen feet back into a control panel. The panel began to beep irritably at him as it sparked and hissed.

"Sorry Lightning Lad!"

The other man flexed out of his inflated form and offered a hand to help up his startled and grounded teammate.

"What's the matter?" He pulled the floored Legionnaire to his feet and watched curiously as the redhead loosely rolled his shoulders and zapped the control panel in an attempt to stop its beeping. "What were you yelling about?"

"Uh," Lightning Lad frantically thought for a plausible excuse. "Cham… hid my tux?"

After a short silence, Bouncing Boy burst out laughing.

"Well you'd better get it back soon – you've only got two hours."

"Yeah, don't worry – I'll be ready!"

"Good." He was grinning widely. "See you later!"

"Sweet – and congratulations, again, Bouncing Boy."

Bouncing Boy gave him a slight salute, visibly reining in excitement as he re-inflated and bounced off down the hallway, leaving Lightning Lad to breathe out in relief and turn around more frenetically than before once he was sure the other man was gone.

"Triplicate Girl?!"

* * *

The silence to be found in space did not have to stop with the blackness. An encompassing quiet filled the prison planet of Takron-Galtos as night drew in upon them. New prisoners had become scarce; and the old ones were all out of reasons to shout and clamor and make nuisances of themselves, as perhaps they would have once reveled in doing.

The single-cell detention area was only half-full, and all but one of its occupants were fast asleep.

Tharok stopped pacing his cell as suddenly the audio-receptor on the left side of his skull picked up a sound he had not heard in a very long time.

"Mano," he growled.

The man in the cell next to him slipped out of light sleep and joined his former teammate at the front of their cells, as close to the energized screens as they could get without touching them.

"Are your energy sensors picking up anything coming towards the planet?"

After a second's delay, the helmeted head shook.

"Curious." He turned away, concentrating on the keening sound. "I can hear a signal. It's incredibly strong; stronger than any I've ever heard before."

"Well?" a deep voice boomed. "Why are you telling us this?"

Tharok turned to glare at Persuader as the colossal man moved to frown at him across the aisle.

"Oh, no particular reason. For some reason I thought maybe you would be interested to know that the most powerful hacking signal I've ever detected, or even _heard_ _of_, is currently making its way into the prison mainframe."

"Tharok!"

He winced as the reprimand seared through his currently hyper-sensitized audio-receptors.

"Do you mind?" he snarled, crabbily whipping his head around.

"Did you say that somebody is hacking into the mainframe?"

"Yes."

"Hmm," the woman uncrossed her legs and lifted herself from the bed.

Her green hair had grown long, far past her hips, but was tangled and matted. Her makeup had long-since been rubbed off of her lips and from her eyes, but the cruel glint of the viridian orbs had not diminished at all. She rested her weight on one leg, her hips falling to the side as she rested her hands lightly on top of them.

"Now this is quite interesting. Who is it?"

"Not a 'who'. There's no person in this universe that could generate a signal that powerful."

"Alright then. So it's a 'what'."

"So it would seem. But the signal is progressive, discerning, evolving. As though it's free-thinking."

The Emerald Empress sighed impatiently. "Will you just spit out whatever it is you're trying to say, Tharok?"

"I'm not trying to say anything!" The cyborg glared venomously at the Empress; finally fed up of her brattiness. "I'm just telling you what I know."

Mano glanced between the two before his brows came down beneath the radio-glass of his mask. "What's the next strongest?"

Tharok turned to him. "What are you talking about?"

"You said it was stronger than any signal you have ever heard before." He folded his arms. "What was the next strongest?"

Tharok turned to stare his leader in the eye as he spoke, a chillingly rueful grin spreading across the organic half of his face.

"Brainiac 5, frying the Legion two years ago."

A smile flickered at the corners of the Emerald Empress's mouth.

"Extremely interesting."

* * *

There was a strange clicking sound coming from an indeterminable source in the back corner of the room, accompanying the consistant clanking of gears. But the lab and its machinery had not run quite as smoothly as it used to in quite some time, and she was long-since accustomed to the odd noises, creeping forwards through the sounds as she swung her head from side to side.

"Triplicate Girl? Are you in here?"

Just then, almost inaudibly, there was a sniffling noise to her left. She span around; her purple-streaked hair flipping around her shoulders.

_Found you!_

She inched forwards and, with some difficulty, pushed aside two hulking pieces of the counter, before kneeling down on the floor and peering underneath.

Triplicate Girl sat in her pajamas there under the workbench, knees tucked into her chin with her head resting pitifully on top of them. Old tears had dried on her pale cheeks, but they were faint traces of what could not have been a long crying jag. She lifted purple eyes to the young woman interrupting her solitude.

"Vi?"

Shrinking Violet shrank down to just a couple of feet tall and quickly walked the few steps back to where her friend sat.

"Hey Triplicate Girl. Whatcha doing under here?"

She received no answer, so glanced over to where her friend's sock-less toes were wriggling nervously and slowly reddening in the unheated lab air.

"You know, if you've been sitting in here all alone all morning, it's really no wonder you've got cold feet."

Triplicate Girl glanced up from beneath her unbrushed fringe with an appreciative smile on her lips. Vi returned the gesture and put her hand on the other woman's shoulder.

"Come on – let's get you prettied up."

Moments after they had both crawled back out from beneath the workbench and were on their way to the door, its expansive control panel beeped green without warning, and the doors hissed opened to admit a figure clothed in baggy black pajamas – and traveling at top speed.

Triplicate Girl immediately split into two bodies and darted in opposite directions, and Vi shrank right down and lifted into the air so that the speedy new entry ended up missing both of them and skidded to a clumsy halt in the center of the lab. He glanced at the reunited Triplicate Girl and the resized Violet in sheepish surprise.

"Ah, you found her."

"You bet!" Vi grinned and crossed her arms. "Too slow, Lyle."

Lyle shrugged and tried fruitlessly to bat his hair out of his eyes. "You win some, you lose some." He narrowed his eyes at the woman in the orange and purple nightdress in some curiosity. "You do know you only have two hours, right?"

"Yes, Lyle, we know," Vi said; though beside her Triplicate Girl's rapidly paling face spoke otherwise. "Now go away and get dressed – have you even showered yet?"

"Nope. Last time I checked Lightning Lad and Star Boy were hogging the boys' bathrooms with a line of, like, ten guys grumbling outside." He was grinning widely and winked at her. "Whatcha gonna do?"

"Go wait your turn," Vi was practically pushing the young man out of the room. "Don't forget a towel this time."

"Hey," he called over his shoulder as his body faded completely from view. "Not like it really matters for me!"

Vi rolled her eyes but allowed her grin free rein across her face. It fell, however, when she turned back to a quaking Triplicate Girl.

The woman's pale lips shook as she spoke. "T-two hours?"

"Yup. Where's your dress?"

"…Room."

"Good. Come on then."

The shorter woman grabbed a shocked Triplicate Girl's wrist and began to practically drag her from the lab.

"Two hours?"

"Yes, Trip. Two hours. Probably less now."

Triplicate Girl came to such an abrupt halt that the backlash on her arm almost spilled Violet to the floor. Fearing another breakdown, the younger woman glanced up to her friend's face somewhat apprehensively.

But instead of tears, she saw the largest smile she had ever seen spreading across the woman's features. Her eyes were shining and her teeth showing white as her mouth stretched as wide as it could go.

"Vi! I'm getting married in two hours!"

"Not if you're not dressed you aren't! I think they must have laws against getting married in your nighty…"

However, the fictional incentive was not needed. Triplicate Girl was virtually _skipping_ down the hallway at top speed, leaving Violet in her dust. Vi half-expected the woman to burst into song as she took off after her friend.

"Hey! Have _you_ showered??"

--

Lightning Lad was pacing. He had been doing so for almost half an hour. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Sometimes he would pause to look at the door, but then he went back to the pacing.

It was driving him crazy.

"Garth, is that _completely_ necessary?"

The other man stilled and turned to look at him. His expression was mostly calm, with a hint of excited worry.

"Sorry. It's just… she's late."

He rolled his purple eyes and folded his arms. "Garth, it is a well-known fact that women are always a few minutes late for their weddings. But even so it never seems to occur to them to start getting ready earlier."

Lightning Lad stared at him. "And you've suddenly become the ultimate wisdom on… female practices?"

He didn't know how, but his redheaded friend had somehow managed to make that ostensibly innocuous sentence dirtily loaded with innuendo. He suppressed the flush he could feel spreading across his face.

"You're being more annoying than usual."

"Oh come on, Cos – you aren't excited?"

"Of course I'm excited."

"Well would it kill you to show it?"

He huffed. "Just because I'm not pacing a groove in the floor does not mean I'm not excited, Lightning Lad."

"Well yeah – but maybe that completely careless pose and annoyed expression _do_. You don't even _care_ what a huge honor you've been given, you stuck-up, _pig-headed_–"

"Lightning Lad!"

Both men swiveled their heads towards the scolding newcomer. During his rant Lightning Lad had been steadily marching forwards, and was now leaning in to Cosmic Boy as they both glared, his currently ungloved finger pointed rudely at the center of the other's chest. When he saw Saturn Girl standing reprovingly in the doorway he had forgotten to watch, he straightened nervously and ruffled his formerly-accusing hand though his hair; neatly brushed but stubbornly springing free from the meager confines of the hair gel Phantom Girl had stolen from Bouncing Boy's room.

"Sorry Saturn…" But he cut himself off as he really noticed her.

Her hair had been swirled off of her face and pulled into a loose mass of curls on the back of her head. Two tendrils had been coaxed from the main bun and fell gently in bouncing curls on either side of her face. The pastel blue shoulder gloves she wore matched the fabric of the floor-length dress; made of genuine Negorian silk and shimmering in the light as it fell from white ties at the back of her neck. Lace was spun across her shoulders and collarbone, forming the top of the dress and dipping right down to her waist, where it ended in large swirls of white – floaty and delicate, like the foam crests of breaking waves.

Lightning Lad's brain appeared to have shut down, and it was Cosmic Boy who was the first to speak.

"Imra, you look beautiful."

She blushed lightly under the praise and smiled at him. "Thank you, Cosmic Boy. And you look very handsome as well. Both of you."

Her pink eyes roved over the matching black tuxedos of the two men, clasped firmly over crisp white shirts. Each had a silk handkerchief tucked into their breast pockets – Cosmic Boy sporting a purple kerchief while Lightning Lad's was deep navy.

She nodded appreciatively at them and smiled again. "You'll do."

Cosmic Boy cleared his throat and glanced somewhat nervously behind her. "You _are_ aware that the ceremony was supposed to begin almost two minutes ago. Is she on her way?"

She nodded. "She's coming. I walked a little ahead to make sure everything was alright here."

Lightning Lad found his voice. "Well, everything's ready! Are the bridesmaids with her?"

"Yes, and the groomsmen are… actually," Her face fell slightly into alarm. "Shouldn't they be with you?"

Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad exchanged looks.

"Well, yes. But if I know them, they'll be stylishly right on time. I wouldn't worry too much about it."

"What a fantastic idea, Garth!" Cosmic Boy snapped. "If that boy arrives here so much as thirty seconds after the girls do, I will personally sentence him to laundry duty for the rest of the–"

"Whoa, CB1! Relax! Miss me that much?"

The three occupants of the hall turned somewhat sharply to the two new entrants. Chameleon Boy stood with his fists on his hips in the doorway, a cocky smile on his face.

"Didn't think we'd miss the fun, did you?"

Cosmic Boy was almost fuming, and Saturn Girl put a calming hand on his arm.

"Don't let him fool you," Timber Wolf loped gracefully past the younger man and came to a halt just before he reached the others. "He couldn't figure out how to do up his bowtie."

Cham hissed in exasperation. "You promised you wouldn't tell."

"I crossed my fingers."

"Ah, whatever, ya big hairball." The Durlan ambled forwards with that smile still on his face. "So – is everybody as excited as I am?"

Cosmic Boy gave Lightning Lad a dull, conspiratorial look.

"Ecstatic."

Saturn Girl rolled her eyes as Lightning Lad looked as though he was about to explode with laughter.

Cham waved a confused finger between the three of them before looking over at Timber Wolf. "We've missed something, haven't we?"

"So it would seem."

The wolfish Legionnaire suddenly jerked his head in the direction of the door, ears twitching gently.

"They're here."

It was a few moments later that the other four picked up on the sounds Timber Wolf had heard. There was a lot of girly laughter, the sound of heels clacking slowly but urgently across the hard floor, and swishing fabric accompanied by intermittent shushing noises.

The door beeped open to admit three figures. The first was Phantom Girl; dazzling in a dress identical to Saturn Girl's, and though her hair was similarly curled, it had been left to cascade down her back, free of the large white pins she wore with her uniform.

Behind her, Shrinking Violet wore the same matching blue dress and gloves, her hair, like Saturn Girl's, curled and pulled back in a loose bun. However, her black tresses were decidedly thicker and heavier than the blonde's, and little pieces of the hairstyle were busily working their way out of confinement and springing to lie against her face and down her back. She had a bright smile on her lips, and her arm was linked firmly through that of Triplicate Girl on her right.

The bride herself wore a dress almost all white – similar in format to the bridesmaids', with pale orange and pastel purple lace trailing across her shoulders and down her torso to her waist. But her dress was made with far more fabric than theirs, and a heavy silk train fell several feet behind her as she walked.

A thin silver band was laid across the top of her head, simple and bare save for three gems inlaid in it: a tiny amethyst – only a few micrometers across – and a golden sapphire of the same size framing a slightly larger white diamond. The three stones were in the center of her forehead; sparkling beautifully in the light of the hall. Hooked onto the headband, just above her ears, purple and orange lace matching that across the bodice of her dress draped down over her three-toned hair, which was twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck. The veil trailed all the way down her back, and stopped with a few inches of it gracing the train of her dress, while the sides of it were pinned loosely with matching mother-of-pearl buttons to the white fabric on the tops of her wrists.

And the young woman looked all the more stunning for the beautiful smile on her lips, the brilliant shine in her eyes, and the elated glow of her entire aura.

The jaws of all the men in the room fell down in varying degrees. Timber Wolf recovered first and walked forwards; forgetting in that moment how stupid he felt in his tux, and how desperately he wanted to sink his claws into the ridiculous orange handkerchief in his pocket and tear it into unrecognizable scraps of thread. He took Triplicate Girl's hands in his as Vi let her arm fall, and he briefly kissed her right cheek, careful not to hurt her with his protruding canines.

"You look amazing."

"Thank you, Timber Wolf," she replied shyly, allowing him to pull her into a hug, and burying trembling gloved hands into his thick black hair. She pulled back with a smile and was immediately assaulted by Chameleon Boy in a far less gentle embrace as he pushed Timber Wolf aside.

Phantom Girl grabbed Timber Wolf as he stumbled and slapped his upper arm lightly.

"Where's _my_ kiss?" she demanded.

He rolled his eyes at her, but was inordinately glad for Cham's distracting exclamation in that moment, somewhat muffled by the white hair he had buried his face into.

"Trip, you look so incredible – every guy in there is going to be _so_ unbelievably jealous!"

She smiled at his somewhat roundabout compliment and patted his back affectionately. When he pulled away, the sight of the enormous smile on his face as he beamed up at her was enough to stop her shaking for the first time since Vi had found her in the lab two hours previously.

"Are you ready?"

She turned to Cosmic Boy, who stood rigid with his hands clasped behind his back, and nodded. Breaking away from Cham's arms, she walked over to where Saturn Girl was still smiling beatifically at her, and to where Lightning Lad had a happy but decidedly devilish grin on his face. He extended his arm to her and she took it without hesitation, ignoring Cosmic Boy behind her commanding the others to get in formation and ranting about their lateness.

Lightning Lad leaned down to speak in her ear. "Are you ready for this?"

"You bet," she murmured back, with a smile on her lips and a giddy laugh threatening to spill out of her chest.

But for one moment the smile faltered, and the excitement in her stomach turned sour. She turned a pleading gaze to the brilliant blue eyes of the man holding her arm; her voice nothing more than a whisper.

"Garth, did… did he…"

Her stomach clenched further when, after a moment's sad delay, he shook his head. Her hand came up to trace the line of the band across her forehead – so beautiful, and so perfect; and so heartbreaking. She let her hand drop.

"I'm ready."

He grinned. "Good."

As Timber Wolf reached forwards to discreetly tap the door three times, she felt Lightning Lad's left arm tense beneath her grip. From inside the great hall, the sounds of an ancient Cargggite wedding march filled the air. She could hear the melody of the violins, lirits, cellos, jaramins and flutes, all flooding together into a tune that brought the jitters flitting straight back into her chest. Her heart pounded and she felt the need to swallow every few seconds. Feeling sweat gathering beneath her gloves, she breathed in deeply.

It felt wonderful.

As they could hear the trilling of a triharp beginning to play, the double doors hissed open to admit the first pair: Timber Wolf and Phantom Girl. As soon as they were a few feet down the aisle, Cham and Vi began their trek, her hand clenching excitedly at the fabric on his forearm and both of them grinning openly. Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl started last; Saturn Girl's grip on his sleeve a little tighter than really necessary.

With a little tug on her arm, Triplicate Girl realized that the music had softened and morphed into the classic Earth wedding march. She recognized the tune and it brought a smile effortlessly to her face. She moved forwards with Lightning Lad as though it was what she had been born to do.

When she entered the hall, the floodlights began to move subtly with her. The main event hall of their headquarters had been done up in bright blue, purple and white, as Phantom Girl had insisted; the entirety of the vast space glowing and gleaming. Towering floral displays lined the walls, white ribbons hanging from the ceiling and across the whitewashed pews. To her left sat the miniature orchestra, still playing, and all wearing grins of deep concentration.

She looked around and saw the faces of the entire Legion smiling at her from their rows of pews – almost all of the people she had ever cared about in her whole time here all in the same place, and all here to watch her take the biggest step in her life since swearing into the Legion eight years ago.

Pride washed through her, and love, and excitement.

When they were almost at the end of the aisle, she tore her eyes from the faces of her friends up to the front, where her three bridesmaids and her fiancé's three groomsmen stood lined up on opposite sides of the platform, spilling down the stairs and smiling so brightly at her it made her chest ache.

And there in the middle, standing in front of the man in black robes with an oversized red book clutched to his chest, was Bouncing Boy – looking the happiest she had ever seen him and so handsome in his black suit.

She subconsciously quickened her pace; only noticing her change in speed when Lightning Lad stumbled slightly and chuckled beside her. But she didn't care. She moved swiftly across the last few sequors and stood on the bottom step, staring into Bouncy's eyes as he beamed into hers.

Eventually forcing herself to break eye contact, she looked up at Lightning Lad. The smile on his face caused a swell of emotion in her stomach and, to her surprise, she felt herself fighting back tears.

He lifted his hands, and she irrationally missed the contact of his arm on hers. But then his hands were on her shoulders, and he leaned in to press a heartfelt kiss to her cheek. She relaxed into the contact, heaving a sigh and knowing that if she kept smiling like this, her face would by numb by the end of the day.

He pulled away and gently chucked her chin with his fingers. His lips moved as though he wanted to say something, but no words came out, and instead he reached down and squeezed her hand. She returned the gesture, and then he was gone: moving to take his place beside Timber Wolf to her right as she turned to face the front.

Bouncing Boy was holding his hand out to her, and she took it without hesitation, allowing him to pull her softly up the final few steps to stand opposite him, looking levelly into his eyes.

"Dearly beloved," the priest began – words she knew so well. Words she had heard echoing in her head, in her dreams.

Her smile was now so wide she could no longer feel it.

Then, suddenly, motion caught her eye at the back of the hall. She tried not to turn her head, but could just make out the form of Colossal Boy in his Legion uniform slipping down the far side of the room to the front.

Panic flared in her chest. Colossal Boy was supposed to be watching the monitors. Just in case.

_Just in case,_ Cos had said.

_No, no, NO!_ Her mind screamed. His being here could only mean one thing.

Colossal Boy reached the front and leaned in to whisper to Lightning Lad, whose face immediately contorted into so many different expressions and emotions she could not put a name to a single one.

But none of them boded well.

Her mind was still screaming in denial as she realized that the priest had stopped reciting and that the whole room had fallen into dismayed silence. After a moment, Cosmic Boy was the one that broke it.

"What's wrong?"

Lightning Lad's voice was low and begrudging, and each word seared through her head, paining her with the unfairness, with anger, with frustration – and with resignation.

"There's been a breakout at Takron-Galtos."


	2. If Everyone Cared II

**Since a few people have asked, I'm just gonna clarify that this story will be updated about once a week, since the chapters are pretty long.**

**Thank you to the reviewers of the first chapter - enjoy the next!**

**_Warning_: Mild gore and mild swearing.**

* * *

**_.: Part 1 - If Everyone Cared :._**

If everyone cared and nobody cried  
If everyone loved and nobody lied  
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride  
Then we'd see the day... when nobody _died_

_-: If Everyone Cared, Nickelback_

* * *

TWO

* * *

"Alright, listen up."

They all lifted their heads to him, and he breathed in deeply before continuing.

"As you're aware, Takron-Galtos was attacked this morning by an unknown party or parties, and the security in the entire single-cell detention area was shut down. All but seven of the prisoners managed to leave the planet."

He closed his eyes and took in another shuddering breath.

_Please tell me you weren't stupid._

"The guards were ordered to open fire, and three prisoners were killed; eight recaptured. Five of those eight are now in critical condition in the prison medical bay."

_Please be alright._

"The Fatal Five are among the thirty-three that escaped, though we have reason to believe that the Empress was seriously injured on their way out. The others have been spotted in the adjoining sectors, but the Fatal Five seem to have gone much further out of range."

Cham took a step forward with an angrily confused expression on his face. "I don't get it – injured, the Empress couldn't have teleported them anywhere... could she?"

"A ship was waiting for them outside the planet."

That caused a ripple of surprise and alarm through the bridge.

"Do they have any security footage of someone leaving it there?" Vi asked, arms folded across her chest.

He shook his head. "They sent us this recording of the space outside the prison."

He turned to the control panel and pressed a short sequence of buttons. Up on the screen behind him appeared the view of space from the far northern side of the prison planet. Nothing could be seen but the winking stars – until there was a shattering explosion in the lower right corner of the screen. Moments later Tharok soared into view, followed by the other four; the Empress clearly lagging but surrounded in the protective green field of the Eye floating beside her.

A ship suddenly materialized in front of them, and they flew to it without missing a beat. It took only seconds for the small craft to charge its launchers and take off at lightspeed into the distance.

The Legionnaires stared at the screen in shock for a few seconds before he turned off the image and looked back at them.

"As I said, there have been multiple sightings of prisoners from the breakout, and the guards who had been in that division have been sent to deal with them. Our help has been requested all over the place, so we're gonna have to split up."

He quickly assigned the amassed Legionnaires to their small teams; feeling unpleasantly thankful that they had all been in the same place when this had occurred. The others took off quickly in the fighter pods, spinning away to all corners of the surrounding nine sectors.

He looked over the remaining people in the room. Saturn Girl was giving him a wary look, Timber Wolf marching back and forth across the floor, obviously fuming. Phantom Girl was watching him ruefully, visibly holding in her own anger, while Bouncing Boy and the Trips dutifully manned the great ship, working to prepare it to pull out of lightspeed, as he had ordered. Cham was sitting with his knees tucked in to his chest at one of the control desks, while Cosmic Boy leaned against the one beside him with a scowl on his face.

"Lightning Lad," Saturn Girl began to walk towards him. "What are _we_ doing?"

"We're waiting for the Fatal Five to show themselves. They're the only ones who haven't been sighted yet."

Cosmic Boy walked over as well. "Don't you think that with the Empress injured, they'll go someone isolated to recover?"

"Probably. But due to the location of Takron-Galtos, and with a ship that small, they'll have to refuel soon – and as soon as they do we'll be there."

Cos nodded. "Alright. What are we doing until then?"

"We're going to Takron-Galtos. We're going to find out who the hell let all these guys out in the first place."

"Lightning Lad, we'll be arriving in two minutes. I've called ahead and the warden will be there to meet us at the bay."

"Thanks, Bouncy." He turned to the others in the bridge. "I want you all to be prepared for anything. Nobody at the prison has any idea what happened, so the intruders could still be there. They think that someone may have linked in to their mainframe and shut it down from the inside, but so far they've not found any terminals that have been broken into."

"Couldn't they have hacked in from outside?"

Lightning Lad turned to Purple Triplicate with a sour expression on his face. "If they did, we're dealing with one of the most powerful hackers in the galaxy."

White Triplicate sighed. "Great."

--

They stood in what he hoped to be an impressive formation as the ship beamed them down into the landing bay. As promised, the prison warden was there and walked forward to meet them.

He was a middle-aged man with oversized sideburns, clothed in black with red streaks down his chest and arms. A giant stun-bar was strapped to his back, various blasters and cuffs on a belt around his waist. There was a scowl on his face; made to look even crueler by a roping scar that took off most of his left ear and cheek.

He greeted them with an outstretched hand, which Lightning Lad took.

"Lightning Lad."

"Warden Kored. Have you found anything else since your last message?"

The man shook his head as he turned around and beckoned for the Legionnaires to follow him.

"Nothing on the intruder. But since we last spoke my men have managed to retrieve nine of the less dangerous escapees. I have been getting reports that your Legion teams have been arriving, so I'm expecting more to be brought back shortly."

"Good," Lightning Lad nodded. "Is there anything we can help you with?"

"If you're better at handling computers than my men, by all means make your way to the mainframe. Otherwise, you can do little."

Cosmic Boy moved to stand on the other side of the man to Lightning Lad. "Would you mind if we inspected the cells?"

"Feel free."

"I'll be going to the medical center: perhaps one of the prisoners there will know something about who freed them."

Lightning Lad turned to give Saturn Girl an approving nod. "Timber Wolf, you go with her. Triplicate Girl and Phantom Girl, you and I are going to help the guards check the rest of the computer terminals for tampering. Bouncing Boy, Cosmic Boy and Cham, you go check the prison levels for anything suspicious… or useful."

The others nodded and split into their given teams. Timber Wolf and Saturn Girl walked down the corridor appearing immediately on their left as they moved further into the prison planet, Bouncing Boy inflating himself and taking off down the main hallway with Cosmic Boy and Cham flying speedily after.

Lightning Lad glanced back down at the man beside him.

"If you find anything, let us know, and we'll return the favor."

"Understood." The warden nodded and shook Lightning Lad's hand once more.

He then reached down to pull a small metallic sphere from a compartment on his belt. He traced his fingers over the grooves on its surface in a specific pattern, and it immediately projected a technical readout of the planet into the air. He bobbed his head towards it and wordlessly handed the map to Lightning Lad, swiftly procuring four more spheres from the guards coming up behind them and distributing them to the girls.

He turned back to Lightning Lad. "There is one more thing. Your brother."

Garth's stomach tightened.

"He is still here."

The Legionnaire frowned faintly. "He was one of the ones you recaptured?"

"No. He was one of the ones who didn't get out." The warden was staring the younger man right in the eyes with an inscrutable expression on his face. "In fact, he stopped several of the others from escaping. By the time my guards got there, he had knocked five of the other prisoners out and had the sixth cornered."

Lightning Lad's electric blue eyes shot wide open, and he barely registered Phantom Girl's hand falling on his shoulder and the jubilant smile on her face.

"That's… that's great."

_You weren't an idiot. I'm… so proud of you._

The warden nodded brusquely, and then he and the guards continued down the hall, leaving the three Legionnaires alone. Lightning Lad looked at Phantom Girl with a rueful smile.

"Well, this should be fun." He reopened the map and pointed at various red and yellow blips scattered around the structure. "Each dot is a terminal. I'm guessing the red ones are the ones that haven't been checked yet."

Phantom Girl activated her own sphere and glanced over it. "Doesn't look that bad. There are only, like, twelve of them."

"The map only shows what's in a hundred foot radius of you."

Her face fell into a scowl. "Oh, perfect."

"Better get going." His grin was still on his face even as he sighed.

The trio began walking forwards to where they could see the first point on their maps. There Lightning Lad came to a halt in front of the terminal etched into the wall and motioned for the girls to continue. Phantom Girl nodded in acknowledgement and linked her arm through Triplicate Girl's, both of them carrying on down the corridor. After a couple of silent minutes, they rounded a corner.

And there it seemed that whatever control had been holding Triplicate Girl together for the hour and a half that had gone by since they had had no choice but to abandon her wedding at the altar decayed into nothing. Without it, her legs gave out and she fell heavily to the floor, pulling a mildly unsurprised Phantom Girl down with her.

"Phantom Girl," she murmured. "It isn't fair. It just isn't fair."

"I know," Phantom Girl mumbled soothingly, falling to her knees and wrapping the other woman in her arms. "It's okay to cry, you know, if you want to."

"I don't need to cry." Triplicate Girl hiccupped in a breath, obviously steeling herself. "I'm not going to cry. I'm not upset!"

Phantom Girl pulled away with one eyebrow raised both disbelievingly and disapprovingly. "Triplicate Girl, if you weren't upset about missing your wedding I'd be seriously worried."

That seemed to do it and, like water rushing through a crumbling dam; the tears began to fall wretchedly down her face, washing away her bridal makeup as the slender young woman buried her forehead in her friend's shoulder.

Phantom Girl held her close, and rocked her like a fragile child as she sobbed.

--

_You know the one you don't check will be the one that they used. You have to check every single one. No matter how boring and pointless it is…_

He rubbed the back of one gloved hand across his forehead. He was steadily growing more and more frustrated as each terminal he checked turned out to be completely untouched; and there were still dozens to go.

Not including the ones within the areas he had assigned to Phantom Girl and the Triplicates.

He had to stop himself from pestering Cosmic Boy or Saturn Girl again. Saturn Girl had sounded exasperated and Cos just downright snappish the last time he had checked up on them.

No, they had nothing to report. No, they hadn't heard anything from the warden. No, the other Legionnaires hadn't made contact. No, they weren't hungry. Or tired.

He was running out of things to ask them about.

With one final grunt of effort, he slid the protective paneling back over his fourteenth terminal and slumped to the floor with his back against the wall, forearms on his knees.

He wondered how Triplicate Girl was doing. He had already spoken to Bouncy, and the guy was taking the situation pretty calmly. In fact, he had informed his leader, he had been preparing for an incident like this all along.

Though that didn't stop him from being mad, and upset about it.

But Lightning Lad knew weddings were generally bigger deals for women – he didn't need Cos's newfound insight on the subject to figure that out. She had to be distraught. He wished he wasn't such a coward when it came to miserable women, and that he could just call her and talk.

But maybe it would be better to keep quiet on the subject. He could just imagine Saturn Girl's disapproving look – or maybe even stern smack on the arm – as he brought up the subject like an idiot and the young woman burst into tears.

He shuddered. Definitely best to hold his tongue.

Just then the communicator in his ring flickered into life, and he brought his fist to the level of his chest.

"Lightning Lad!"

He frowned down at the image of Invisible Kid – a mixture of shock and panic twisting the younger man's face. "What's wrong?"

"The Fatal Five have been sighted," His deep brown eyes widened further as he leaned in closer to his ring. "They're on Earth."

Lightning Lad felt a strange wrench in his chest, unsure whether it was his heart or his stomach that was twisting so painfully.

He hissed in a breath. "Where are you?"

"Neerin Gamma. That's just the thing, Lightning Lad – we're all ages away! They must have planned this, knowing we'd all go to get the other prisoners and leave Earth unprotected."

Lightning Lad felt like cursing. He had never expected that the Fatal Five would be foolish enough to return to Earth. But the call from Takron-Galtos, coming when they were all on hand, had sent the entire Legion all over the galaxy: all at least an hour away from their home base.

Invisible Kid was right – Earth was completely unprotected.

He was on his feet in seconds and flying back towards the hangar. "Invisible Kid, call all Legionnaires: tell them that as soon as they've recaptured their prisoners and returned them to Takron-Galtos, go help another team. As soon as that's done they're to return immediately to Earth."

"Yessir."

Both men cut off their links and Lightning Lad immediately called all the others on the prison planet, ordering them back to the ship.

It took only minutes for the eight-person team to get their titanic cruiser launched and rocketing through space, headed desperately to protect their home – hoping upon hope that they would not be too late.

* * *

_My, it's been a long time. But this is still so enjoyable._

She watched as the foundations of the building burned, and slowly, so slowly, the rest of it came crashing down – tumbling in on itself, rubble slamming into the street as a great cloud of dust lifted into the air, choking people as they ran and screamed and cried out for help.

"Don't worry," she told them. "Help is on the way. But they shall be of no use to you."

Her lips spread into a grin and she whipped around; the glowing green Eye following her command and sending a devastating blast into the base of another building. That one, too, crumbled into a pile of metal girders and sheets and debris from the homes that it used to consist of.

She wondered passingly if people had been inside. Well, the more fool them if they had been. As if the terrified shouts and screams from outside had not been warning enough.

Now, there was a skyrail around here somewhere… she glanced around her, smiling still wider as she caught sight of the train sliding across its suspended track.

"Hello," she called. "Didn't they tell you this was a bad time?"

With a single thought, green beams of energy swept out and knocked down three of the braces in succession. The train and the track fell almost in slow motion, thundering to the street hundreds of feet below and causing a great crack to shoot down the street; throwing up chunks of the road and shattering the glass of all the windows in a fifty sequor radius. The ensuing shockwave and explosion almost reached all the way up to her at her high vantage point in the air.

She shrieked angrily and surrounded herself in the protection of the Eye. "Watch where you're exploding!" she hissed.

Seconds later she was smiling again as she noticed one of the curved pillars outside some museum or another melt away under the hand of Mano, the two on either side of it following suit and finally allowing the building to actually fall off balance and crash heavily to the ground in a cloud and explosion of rubble, metal and splintering glass.

Persuader was making his presence known as he stormed down the street, swiping his axe into the road and tearing up pipelines and structure foundations, buildings collapsing in his wake and people screaming and running from him in horror.

It still amazed her how long people could take to get themselves out of the way. _I mean, really – can they not take a hint? Or did they just think we would get tired or bored and leave them alone?_ She laughed.

"Well, long time no see, Empress. I guess you're not as badly hurt as you were pretending to be." There was a high-pitched mechanical whine from behind her. "Let me fix that."

She whirled around in surprise just in time to see the enormous shock of white lightning headed straight in her direction. The blast connected with her stomach and sent her spinning and screaming off in the opposite direction. Her back slammed violently into the metallic face of one of the buildings they had not yet destroyed, and she groaned in pain, glaring up at the young man hovering over her as his cannon reformed back into a hand.

"Ah, Lightning Lad. It _is_ good to see you. You haven't changed much."

"Thanks." He eyed her up and down. "You look like shit."

Her eyes narrowed as she channeled her building anger into useful energy. She watched with satisfaction as the Emerald Eye of Ekron came up behind the Legion's leader, glowing brilliant green as she laughed.

"It's a shame you have to leave me so soon."

Right on cue, the eye fired a devastating blast in his direction, fueled by her long pent-up anger and breathless need for revenge.

But just inches from blowing that pretty little face from the surface of the planet, the green blast was diverted and fanned out around the Legionnaire in swirling waves of power.

"What?!" she shouted in anger, intensifying the beam. She then noticed the faint purple glow around Lightning Lad, and with a furious huff, she allowed the Eye a rest. The purple shield disappeared seconds later, with Cosmic Boy flying up to join his teammate as it did.

Lightning Lad was giving the Eye still floating beside him a somewhat frightened but mostly wary stare. She called it back; enjoying the way his brilliant blue eyes followed it round to her.

"I didn't realize the Fatal Five had become so chummy again," Lightning Lad shouted.

But she saw through that instantly. If he wanted to know why the disbanded team had gotten together again, why didn't he just ask? She would have thought it was obvious anyway.

"Simple – we stand a better chance together. Much like the Legion, I believe."

"You're nothing like us. Don't even go there."

She gazed at Cosmic Boy. "The darker side of the coin, perhaps. No matter: we are what we are – and I am taking you down."

The Eye blasted them without warning, and she watched with satisfaction as both men writhed and shouted in pain as the magical currents of the Eye of Ekron seared through their bodies. She finally relented, and let them fall, smoking, to their end hundreds of feet below.

Of course, she was aware that Legionnaires were far tougher than that to do away with. Despite the fact that they were now falling to their certain deaths, she knew that somehow they were going to survive. And so, with a flick of her wrist, the Eye released another blast. Its force ricocheted through her whole body, and she bathed in the power. The green glow was almost blinding, but she felt no desire to look away.

Even so, when the great blast suddenly changed direction and headed straight back towards her, it took her far longer to react than she had time for. It connected powerfully with her, and she felt everything in her body scream in agony in those few fractions of a second that it took for her to command an end to the attack.

Her vision rippling in and out of focus, she swung an irate glare around her – eyes finally settling on the woman floating mere feet from her with her hands to her temples, lit from behind with the reddish glow of the setting sun and the much more powerful glow of the city lights.

"Saturn Girl!" she hissed.

"Empress," the other replied in a much calmer tone.

Not to be outdone by a child, the Emerald Empress swept cool into her voice and indifference into her posture, despite the pain still rippling through her muscles.

"You certainly _have_ become powerful. Inside _my _mind_. _See anything you like?"

She received no answer.

"Very well then. Be rude – I don't care. But I would just like to take the opportunity to tell you that you are far too late to stop us."

Saturn Girl raised one eyebrow and glanced behind and below her. With a slight angry tremor through her stomach, and the rapid clenching of her teeth, even from her great height the Empress could see Persuader and Mano being attacked by the two men she knew she had not gotten rid of, as well as three small white, purple and orange blobs.

Summoning her calm, she grinned and turned to the Titan staring at her.

"So how is she taking the interruption of her wedding? She must be a little ticked off at us, right?"

At perhaps the most inopportune time possible, there was a resounding crash from below, and both hovering women looked down just in time to see Triplicate Girl merging back into one body after having hurled Mano though a solid stecrete wall.

The man in the yellow containment suit lay in a settling pile of dust and debris: and didn't move.

A muscle in the Empress's jaw began to twitch as she turned back to Saturn Girl. The blonde's face was so gently mocking that her control snapped, and the older woman sent an enormous green blast in her direction. But the attack went right through her, and the second that she registered what had happened, the Empress felt the Legionnaire's boot connect viciously with the back of her head.

She was vaguely aware of falling. Wind was whistling in her ears and pulling at her eyes. There was a terrible pounding in her head and she tried desperately to block it out, but lost her struggle against the pain. It was not enough to send her into unconsciousness, but enough to make her wonder if the agony searing through her senses would ever go away.

Soon there were arms around her, but when she saw flashes of pink and white through her failing vision she had to force herself to ignore the instinct to relax into the contact. There was a strange shift in momentum and she figured Saturn Girl must have touched down to the floor. But she couldn't quite summon the motor function to pull herself out of the Legionnaire's arms. The world was still swimming around her as she heard talking.

There was one distinct pounding sound, maybe to her right, and she flickered her eyes open long enough to see the hulking form of Persuader fallen to the ground, most likely dumped by the two men hovering over him. Mano joined him shortly, and she had to stop herself from counting how many of the same woman she was seeing floating above him.

"…okay? H… -rd d- ou …her?"

_Shut up!_ She shouted. _It's bad enough watching you fuzz like this without having to listen to you in pieces!_

"-tty hard." Saturn Girl spoke for a few more seconds, but the Empress couldn't make out any of her words until; "-ncussed."

Her eyes flashed open. She suddenly remembered everything. She twisted her body to the side and fell roughly out of Saturn Girl's arms. The other woman made no further attempts to help her, backing away from the Empress towards the other three Legionnaires.

It was Cosmic Boy who spoke next as her hearing seemed to return to her.

"You're beaten, Empress. Don't make any more trouble and we won't have to hurt you further."

She felt bile rising in her throat but choked it down. There was a tiny beeping noise and she wondered if her hearing was failing again. But as Lightning Lad raised his fist to the level of his chest and an image projected out of his ring, she dismissed that idea and almost smiled as she realized what the call was for. She recognized the back of the black-haired woman's head in the projection.

"Lightning Lad! Get out here, _now_. Cham's hurt! Really bad!"

Saturn Girl was staring at her, eyes glowing faintly pink. _Took you long enough to decide to do that,_ she thought snidely. The Titan's eyes flashed wide open and she didn't look at the other Legionnaires as she spoke.

"They were just the distraction!"

"And it seems," the Empress grinned dizzily. "We have done our job."

With one final burst of energy, she called on the Eye and saw it appear in the corner of her vision as the world glowed green, and she and her two teammates vanished from New Metropolis with an impressive flash of light and power.

* * *

"Okay, anyone else think this is completely random?"

Timber Wolf nodded silently at Cham as they landed just behind Bouncing Boy and Phantom Girl in the middle of a forest.

"Seriously! There's nothing here!"

Bouncing Boy turned and shushed him. "There's _almost_ nothing here. And if they're planning on ambushing us from these trees, you're giving them a pretty good target."

Cham pouted, but nodded and lowered his voice. "Point taken. Shutting up."

Phantom Girl was looking around them both nervously and impatiently. "Well, if this was the last place they were spotted, where are they now?"

"They must be headed somewhere," Timber Wolf said quietly, sniffing the air. "Because they _were_ here, but they're definitely not anywhere close now."

Bouncing Boy turned to Phantom Girl. "Why don't you go have a look around?"

She nodded, and faded from view. The three men looked about themselves; unsure of which direction they should head in, if any. In the fading light, the forest was positively eerie – the trees sending obscene shadows stretching across the sparse grass beneath the dead leaves and pine needles and creaking ominously all around them, boughs trembling in the slight wind and sending animals chattering and skittering above the Legionnaires' heads to destinations unknown.

"A creepy place for creepy people," Cham asserted, backing closer to Timber Wolf. "Bouncy, what did you say was out here?"

"Not much, but there are a few refineries and factories. Can't think of anything obvious they make that the Fatal Five would want, though."

It was then that they heard a ghostly wailing noise. Cham jumped straight up and back onto Timber Wolf's shoulder in fright as the older man fell into a wary crouch – and Bouncing Boy downright shrieked.

"It's "Night of the Vengeful Spirits, Part 5!" he screamed. "It ends just like this – creepy woods, creepy noises, four friends trapped to face their eternal doom at the hands of the Phantoms of the Night!"

That made Timber Wolf stand up straight, and with an angry growl, he turned around. "Phantom Girl,"

She came back into view just as she could no longer contain her laugher. Her giggles echoed through the forest, over the heads of one very pissed off and two very shocked Legionnaires.

"Sorry! Couldn't resist!"

Bouncing Boy flushed in embarrassment as Cham leapt off of Timber Wolf's shoulders, landing on the floor and brushing himself off imperiously.

Timber Wolf rolled his shoulder blades casually and glared at the smiling woman in front of him, gesturing to their teammates. "Well next time you get the urge to give these two heart attacks – _don't_."

She inched closer to him with a teasing expression on her face. "Aw, is the widdle puppy getting cwanky?"

"Uh, guys, not to interrupt this... disturbing little exchange," Bouncing Boy said with an inscrutable expression on his face. "But have you forgotten why we're here?"

Phantom Girl sighed and backed away from Timber Wolf. "Sorry Bouncy. I didn't see them, but you might be interested to know that I heard clanking noises coming from three of the factories up there."

"Three?" Bouncing Boy rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Those places are supposed to stop production at five in the afternoon." His hand fell back to his side and he frowned. "They must be trying to throw us off."

"Well, it's a nice thought, but they can't lose _me_," Timber Wolf asserted. He turned to Phantom Girl, folding his arms. "Which direction are the factories in?"

She pointed immediately to her right. "About four hundred sequors thataway."

"They don't have the Empress with them, do they?"

Bouncing Boy glanced over at Cham. "Nope. Why?"

"So they had to have walked. So there should be a nice scent trail for our hound dog here to follow."

Phantom Girl couldn't stop the giggle that escaped from her lips into her palm at the priceless 'I am _not_ amused' expression Timber Wolf was shooting Cham. Bouncing Boy was smiling too, and gave Timber Wolf a sympathetic look.

"Sorry, man, but he's right."

The tallest of them sighed but fell to all fours, sniffing the ground, eyes closing as he sifted through all the scents trailing through the vast forest.

Phantom Girl shivered slightly as she watched him; memories of a disturbingly similar situation creeping into her mind. She appreciated the hand Cham rested on her shoulder, and reached up to give it a thankful squeeze.

Then Timber Wolf was moving – though for stealth's sake he seemed to have been able to restrain a howl this time. He sprinted through the trees at full speed as the other three Legionnaires took off after him. Bouncing Boy inflated a few seconds later, sick of smacking clumsily into the trees, and bounced expertly between them at high enough velocities to keep up with the small orange serea bat using sonar to navigate beside him. Phantom Girl brought up the rear, phasing delicately through all the foliage in her path.

It took the high-speed team less than a minute to arrive outside the walled base containing upwards of fifty factories and other titanic buildings. Phantom Girl phased them all noiselessly through the electrified outer wall and Timber Wolf immediately led them to a factory with '16' emblazoned in English on its side. Great clunking and churning sounds boomed from within, and Timber Wolf pointed and nodded at it. The other Legionnaires returned the motion in acknowledgement, and began to look for a slightly more subtle way in than the twenty foot double doors immediately facing them.

Cham, shifted back to his normal form, suddenly clicked his tongue to get the others' attention and gestured towards a line of grates at the top of the towering wall of the building's side. Timber Wolf made quick work of one of the vent openings, and the four of them were inside the building moments later.

The factory was almost entirely automated, so even without workers, with the machinery turned on there was a vast amount of work being done very smoothly. Its only failing came at the end of the production line doing… whatever it was supposed to be doing, where the finished product – consisting of smallish yellow-green glowing cubes – was just dropping off the end of the conveyers. Presumably there should have been some kind of collection skip there to catch them and transport them to their next destination.

In lieu of the skip, the Legionnaires immediately caught sight of Validus grabbing the cubes in both hands and carrying them over to the small spaceship they had seen the Fatal Five fleeing Takron-Galtos in. The vessel was not very full, but Validus appeared to only be able to carry three or four cubes at a time, despite their small size.

While the other three studied Validus, Cham was looking around the rest of the factory. Soon he turned to the others with a worried look on his face.

"Uh, guys? Where's Tharok?"

"Right here."

Cham didn't have time to react before the cyborg had blasted him off of their vantage point atop one of the machines and onto the floor several sequors below. Cham managed to roll as he landed, softening the impact, but couldn't make himself get up afterwards.

He watched through fuzzy eyes as the other Legionnaires swarmed around Tharok, beating him back almost immediately and getting in several damaging shots. Timber Wolf left five vicious marks across the organic side of the cyborg's face, Bouncing Boy damaging his cannon arm and Phantom Girl kicking him several times hard enough to cause sparks to erupt in the core of his robotic half.

He fought back with furious counterattacks of his own. Bouncing Boy slammed to the ground a few feet from Cham with a dazed expression on his face; his black hair singed and smoking. Up in the air Phantom Girl and Timber Wolf were still sparring angrily with Tharok, and they seemed pretty evenly matched.

Bouncing Boy shuffled over to Cham.

"Hey, hey Cham? Are you alright?"

"Nyuh."

Bouncing Boy smiled faintly. "So, was that a yes or a no?"

"Not sure." Cham pushed himself up on his elbows – or at least he tried. As soon as he lifted his torso from the ground, shooting pains ripped through his ribcage and he slammed back down clumsily. "That would be a 'no'."

"Have you broken something?"

"I think so. Ugh," he moaned, as with the acknowledgment came the realization – and the pain. "Argh! Yep! I'm broken. Go help the others!"

Bouncing Boy looked as though he was just about to answer, when he suddenly turned upon noticing the vast shadow that had fallen across the duo. Validus loomed over them, wearing the same vacant expression he always did. His fists swung down.

Bouncing Boy inflated rapidly, and Validus's hands pounded him completely flat. But the recoil as the Legionnaire snapped back into ball form sent the monster flying back into the opposite wall as Bouncing Boy deflated, groaning.

"Bouncing Boy! Are you okay?!"

Cham got a thumbs up for his efforts.

"I'm fine. Just a little bit, ah… sore. Let's get you into some cover."

With a wrenching crack, Tharok was slammed into the ground a few feet from the two Legionnaires, sliding along the stecrete on his back, followed immediately by Timber Wolf in his larger wolf form. The younger man landed on the cyborg's chest and began swiping ferociously at him. He was sent flying by a direct metal kick to the face.

As the two brawled, Phantom Girl rose out of the floor by Bouncing Boy and touched him lightly on the cheek. "Bouncy?"

"I'm fine, really." He sat up and shook his still-smoking hair. "Just feel a little bit squashed."

She nodded and grinned humorlessly. "Understandable." She looked down at Chameleon Boy, lying on his back with a grimace on his face and trying to ignore the pain. "Cham? We have to get you out of here."

She knew she would hurt him, but even so she put her arm across his back and lifted him to his feet, pretending she didn't notice his wincing and his bravely swallowed cries of pain. Bouncing Boy rose beside them.

Just at that moment Phantom Girl saw a flash of yellow out of the side of her vision. A glowing cube flew at them with the extreme power of Validus's pitch and hit Bouncing Boy in the stomach. He grunted and flew backwards several feet – Phantom Girl didn't have any time to react before several more cubes hit her and Cham.

One smacked into her shoulder and one her hand, and a third, fourth and fifth connected with Cham. The force of the incredibly dense blocks and the momentum they gained from Validus's throws hurled her and the young man in her arms up into the air and into a piece of churning machinery. The pair slipped down the side of the appliance like clothing flung against a wall. She stared in shock at her flight ring as it failed to activate, and saw with horror that it had been damaged by the impact of that last block.

She reached out her free hand for something – anything – to grab on to. After a few terrifying seconds of their vertical slide, her hand caught an upturned lever and she managed to get a good enough grip to halt their fall. The jerk on her arm almost pulled it out of the socket, and she felt tears spring into her eyes at the pain.

It was hard to believe that just two hours ago she had been walking down the aisle, hoping to heaven she wouldn't trip and embarrass herself in front of everybody.

She looked desperately down at Cham for help, but he was completely unconscious and a dead weight in her grasp. She tightened her grip around his crushed ribs and swung them in so that her front was pressed against the warm metal of the machine.

The lever she was holding began to slip down.

"No! No, don't you dare!" she shouted, just before it flipped and she and Cham dropped down a foot.

With the lever facing in the other direction, she felt her hold on it failing. The concrete ground was still many sequors below. She activated her flight ring, feeling it shift uncertainly before they began their plummet to the floor. At the last minute she slammed the device against her thigh, feeling the crunch of mechanics, and the ring sparked. She and Cham stopped their fall inches from the ground, and then the ring gave out. She landed lithely on her feet, but Cham's weight immediately dragged her down to her knees.

She gathered him gently in her arms and glanced him over. The first time she didn't catch it, but the second time she looked the teen over she saw a strange gold color standing out against the orange of the skin on his upper left arm. Immediately on alert, she pulled down his glove to widen the gap between it and the beginning of his sleeve.

Spreading across his arm like a scar was a gold mark: and all around it his flesh was burning, smoking, charring.

She choked back a wave of nausea at the sight of the revolting wound. "Cham!"

She stared down at him for a few more seconds in shock before bringing her flight ring to eye level. It was sparking and obviously unhappy but holding together. She tried to activate it and almost cried in relief when it came on and gave her a projection of Lightning Lad.

"Lightning Lad!" She saw with bitter joy that he had obviously fared better than they had. "Get out here, _now_. Cham's hurt!" She looked down at the spreading golden scar on his arm and the singing skin. "Really bad!"

She deactivated the ring without waiting for an answer and looked over to where Timber Wolf had Tharok pinned to the ground.

"You're too late," Tharok smirked, despite his fairly extensive injuries and damages. "We already have what we came for."

Phantom Girl's eyes widened and she turned in horror to the open doors – Validus and the ship full of glowing cubes nowhere in sight.

Timber Wolf had followed her gaze, but now looked back at Tharok with red eyes and bared teeth. "You're gonna pay for hurting Cham," he snarled.

"Not today, beastie."

And with a green flash of light, the cyborg disappeared.

Timber Wolf fell forward onto his knees into the suddenly vacated space, shrinking back into his normal form and hurrying over to join Bouncing Boy with Phantom Girl and Cham: the younger man cradled in her arms and her tear-streaked face buried fretfully into his, her shoulders shaking in fear and panicked worry, her lips whispering his name like a prayer.


	3. If Everyone Cared III

**Thanks to everybody who reviewed... and for all your intriguing questions :D**

**_Warning_: Mild gore, mild swearing.**

* * *

**_.: Part 1 - If Everyone Cared :._**

And as we lie beneath the stars  
We realize how small we are  
If they could love like you and me  
Imagine what the world could be.

_-: If Everyone Cared, Nickelback_

* * *

THREE

* * *

Cosmic Boy closed his eyes and attempted to remember a time he wasn't trying to restrain himself from killing Lightning Lad for this. But shutting his eyes unfortunately didn't affect his hearing – he could still pick up the tapping of feet moving back and forth across the floor. He hunched his shoulders and flickered his eyes open.

"Garth," His voice sounded strained. More so than he had thought it would. "Please, stop, pacing."

Lightning Lad immediately collapsed into a free chair next to where he had been walking and interlaced his fingers across his knees. His legs began to jiggle up and down as he gnawed on his lower lip.

Thankfully, it was only a few minutes later that the doors before them hissed open and Phantom Girl appeared in their vision, accompanied by a dowdy brunette nurse who did not look best pleased.

"Phantom Girl!" Saturn Girl jumped from her seat and flew over to her teammate, embracing her closely while being careful to watch her right arm. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel fine," the raven-haired Legionnaire huffed. "They've fixed the ligament and there's hardly any bruising – I don't understand the big deal."

"Miss Wazzo," the frumpy nurse sighed; sounding very much as though this was not the first time she had had this exact talk with the patient. "I know you Legion guys. Tomorrow you'll be back in action, punching sprok-knows-what and flying around the galaxy like mad people. And you're going to pull that ligament again and this time you're going to tear it through. There's only so much of the damage we can regenerate in a day." She suddenly looked pleading, and Saturn Girl was touched at how much she was obviously worrying about her friend. "Please, Miss Wazzo, please at least stay here one more day."

"Tinya," Saturn Girl interjected. "It wouldn't hurt for you to stay here just one more night. I think it would be best. We don't want you–"

"I'm not staying here. You know how I feel about this place." Phantom Girl repressed a quiver at unpleasant memories. "What if I _promise_ I won't tear my shoulder? Will you let me go?"

The nurse still looked unhappy. "I'd feel better if you promised you would stay out of action."

"She will." Saturn Girl ignored her friend's death glare and offered the nurse a mollifying smile. "I'll make sure she stays out of trouble."

"See that you do. Because if you come in here again tomorrow, Miss Wazzo, I don't care how badly you're beaten up or _who_ your mother is – I _will_ kick your ass."

Phantom Girl blinked. "It's nice to know you care so much, Nurse Westé. But I won't be coming in here for a long time. Except to visit Cham, of course."

Nurse Westé frowned and sighed; but appeared to give in. She put her hand on Phantom Girl's shoulder. "Good. I hope you feel better soon."

"I feel fine _now_!" Phantom Girl called after the nurse as she retreated back down the hallway.

The doors slammed shut behind the woman, leaving them alone in the private Legion waiting room. Phantom Girl gazed around her; curious as to her turnout. She noticed Lightning Lad jittering in a chair, giving her a pleased but worriedly lopsided grin, and Cosmic Boy sitting opposite, glaring venomously at Lightning Lad's bobbing feet. She stifled a snicker at his expression. Saturn Girl, beside her, was the only other girl – but the person she was most interested in was Timber Wolf, leaning against the two adjoining walls at the far corner of the room, staring somewhat impassively at her.

"Hey, Timber Wolf!" she called with a wide grin. She looked him over and was relived to note that he had not sustained any lasting injuries from their fight. "It was sweet of you to come."

He looked as though he was going to open his mouth for a retort, but she didn't give him the chance. With the smile still playing across her lips, she dove into the floor and popped up already leaping in for a hug.

He acted – as always – like she had never done it before, and that he was in shock. First he was completely still, and then after a moment he brought his arms up to cradle her back and head. She grinned into his chest when she felt his hand delve into her hair with a very slight air of desperation.

"I'm glad you're okay," he said concisely, sounding calm and detached – but the way he still had his cheek pressed firmly into the top of her head and the way his heart thundered beneath her ear belayed that sentiment.

"Well, I wasn't _that_ badly hurt. I'm surprised you bothered to turn up at all." She injected just the right amount of indifference into her tone.

But as usual, he could tell she was putting it on. He cocked an eyebrow at her, not needing to voice his scepticism. His arms dropped from around her, but she held onto him for a few seconds more before releasing her hold and sinking down from standing on her toes.

She swallowed and licked her lips tentatively. "What's the news on Cham?"

"He should be alright." It was Cosmic Boy who answered, and she turned to face him, pressing her back ever so slightly against Timber Wolf's arm. "They said they've got their absolute best guys working on him."

"What was wrong? I've never seen… anything like that."

She had tried and failed for many hours to think of injuries worse than Cham's; certain she must have seen _something_ more terrible in all her years in the Legion. But her mind had come up blank – save for the image of orange skin melting and peeling and turning gold as it steamed, hissing and bubbling. A shiver of revulsion slipped down her back, which Timber Wolf evidently picked up. She felt his hand turn to lie almost flat against the small of her spine; a feeble reassurance.

"It was actridium. That factory was refining actridium cubes." Lightning Lad stood; apparently now able to keep himself from twitching or pacing or anything else that would make Cosmic Boy shout at him.

"What are those?"

Lightning Lad's face was drawn and pale. "We used it on Winath for the harvest. You powder the cubes and put them in a spraying drone. It travels along the ground and sprays the actridium power at the bases of the crop.

"Actridium turns to liquid when it comes into contact with an organic solid. It reacts with water in the air and creates an acid with pH 0.34." He paused to rub at his left forearm, gazing down at the ground as if gathering himself. "That acid melts right through the plant stems so we only have to pick them off the ground. When it touches a _person_, it creates a toxic neocarbonite with their skin molecules. It looks like gold."

Phantom Girl swallowed. "I know. How do you fix it?"

"You can't. There's no way to reverse the reaction." His fingers left his arm when Saturn Girl's laced in with them and pulled his hand gently down to hang by their sides. "They're using that new regeneration technology on Cham."

"New? That tech's been around for years," Timber Wolf said doubtfully, tapping his fingers against Phantom Girl's hip. She shuddered and swallowed a smile when his claws tickled her skin through the fabric of both her cape and uniform.

"It's a new branch." Cosmic Boy folded his arms across his chest. "Before it, the tech could only _repair_ fissures or lacerations. This new one can actually recreate the base code of the surrounding cells to generate new tissue. It's less than a year old, but the doctors said it was the only way they could help Cham. Otherwise they would have had to amputate his arm."

Phantom Girl swallowed against the pain in her throat. The image of her young friend's skin sizzling and hissing blackly was suddenly replaced with one of him with his left arm completely missing from the shoulder – just above where the wound had been.

She pressed her eyes shut, but it only made the image stronger.

Timber Wolf sensed her pain, felt her heart race increase and her skin temperature fall slightly, but didn't know what was causing it. Worriedly, he slipped his hand round from her hip to her stomach, pulling her body against his. She turned her face into his chest, her eyes wide open.

There was a deep silence, broken only by Phantom Girl's labored breathing.

"We should get back."

Saturn Girl's calm voice was soothing in a room filled with tension. It eased Phantom Girl's clenched muscles, and the young woman released her death grip on Timber Wolf's uniform to allow her hand to just rest against his stomach.

"Bouncing Boy and Triplicate Girl said that everyone's gotten back. Well," She glanced over at Lightning Lad's stoic face. "Some of them have set off again on their missions."

Lightning Lad nodded. "You're right. We can't do anything for Cham here."

"They said it'll be at the very least another day," Cosmic Boy added. "We'd be better off waiting at headquarters. Besides, if that chronometer is right, we should be having company in about an hour."

Phantom Girl turned shocked eyes to the aforementioned device, and her stomach turned excitedly when she saw the time. "Whoa, is that how long I've been out? Go figure."

She grabbed Timber Wolf's arm and plunged without warning into the floor.

The remaining Legionnaires exchanged looks before exiting the room in the more customary fashion.

* * *

She hissed as she rested her head back against the cool metal of the wall. The pounding and throbbing had not gone away – if anything they had intensified. Her green eyes were pressed shut against the pain as her chest continued to turn and twist. She took shallow breaths in an effort to control her churning stomach.

"Well, that was a complete success. Not only did we obtain the actridium, but we've seriously injured a member of the Legion."

She slowly turned to Tharok with venom in her glare. "One member of the Legion injured is hardly a spectacular accomplishment. And may I remind you that they got in their fair share of blows too."

She eyed the cyborg's damaged core as it still sparked and hissed. Her subordinate was currently working repairs on it, and had not actually told her how badly he was injured – though she couldn't summon the will to care. He glanced up at her blankly.

"Your _headache_ is a meager price to pay."

"But we still don't know what we did all this _for_!" she snapped, completely at the end of her tether and in too much pain to bother with feigning poise.

A loud pounding sound behind them made both her and Tharok wince as the floor jerked beneath them.

"Validus!" she shrieked. "Keep it down! Some of us are recovering from concussions over here!"

She received a crossly assenting roar in return. The giant turned back to the ship to finish unloading its yellow cargo as her eyes flicked curiously over to the pile of cubes accumulating on the floor. Hands flattened against the refreshingly chilly concrete floor, she gazed over their spoils with some disdain.

"Tharok, how long until they arrive?"

There was a pause.

"If it is true to its word; about five minutes."

The cyborg put heavy emphasis on the 'it'. The Empress supposed Tharok was correcting her personification of their rescuer. He seemed certain whatever had caused the signal was sentient but not alive. The terminology he had spouted still confused her, and she decided to just wait until their knight in shining armor showed himself. Itself.

Their designated meeting place was a dull and grim abandoned warehouse somewhere out in the Raynon system – she wasn't too concerned. She had been sleeping for most of the journey; under Tharok's begrudging care, she supposed. She had only had enough energy to get them from Earth to their ship, and they had had to make the rest of the journey the more mundane way. Mano was now sitting atop an old pile of metal crates, watching the doors but also, most likely, on the alert for anything approaching the warehouse from any direction. Persuader was buffing his axe atop a different crate stack, but he too seemed quite on edge.

To be perfectly honest with herself, she was most likely one part curious and apprehensive and two parts fearful to meet the 'it' that Tharok held so much anxiety over. The Legion were probably still scrambling over themselves to get help for their injured teammate – a definite boon, she begrudgingly agreed with her half-mechanical subordinate – and trying to capture the remaining Takron-Galtos escapees, so were at the bottom of her short list of worries at that moment in time.

But a machine, program, being; whatever the hell it was that Tharok came as close to being afraid of as she had ever seen him left her with a sour taste in her mouth that had nothing to do with the after-effects of Saturn Girl's blow to her head.

Her lips twisted in anger as she thought of the pink-clad Legionnaire. It seemed sickening to her that someone who quite evidently thought themselves so noble and adorable was no better than the Empress herself when it all boiled down to it. Both were willing to fight for what they wanted, both willing to hurt. Perhaps their only difference was that she would kill easily, while Saturn Girl would need strong motivation.

She would though. Perhaps if she did she would be ripped from her pedestal. The Empress's feet tapped against the floor.

Perhaps.

It was completely dark outside as she tilted her head up to stare out of the small window high up on the wall. Her long green hair was a billowing, ratty cushion against the wound at the base of her skull. The stars twinkled out in space, and to her they seemed mocking.

_Free to fly_, they called.

_No need to hide_.

"Shut up," she hissed, turning back to glare at the floor.

There was an alarm suddenly, and its abruptness had her jumping to her feet despite the throbbing pain in her head.

"What is it?!"

Tharok rose in a more docile manner than she had, deactivating the alarm on his wrist and staring over to the door. She followed his gaze and froze.

Standing in the scanty light of the stars and blocking a spanning shadow across the floor was what looked like a man. He was back-lighted too heavily for her to be able to tell much more about him other than that he looked bald and was slender, but well built.

The voice that echoed through the cavernous space sent icy shivers trickling down her spine: the two-toned mechanical baritone eerily familiar.

"Welcome, Fatal Five."

* * *

Phantom Girl had catapulted herself from the ship before it had completely landed in the hangar, forgoing the door and this time leaving even Timber Wolf in her dust. Grumbling crossly to himself and tapping his claws against the metal wall of the craft, the towering Legionnaire waited for the hatch to fall open just enough for him to escape before running down the ramp and speeding after the woman. Saturn Girl was right on his tail – so to speak – with Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy bringing up the rear after shifting the small airship into standby.

When they entered the main room the five Legionnaires were greeted with the somber view of Bouncing Boy and Triplicate Girl cuddled together on the couch, in complete silence and with broken expressions on both of their faces.

Saturn Girl was the only one brave enough to walk over: the other four hovering somewhat nervously and apprehensively in the doorway.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Bouncing Boy glanced up at the older woman and tightened his grip around Triplicate Girl's waist. "Maybe later." He obviously forced his wide smile. "We're having company about now, I think!"

Saturn Girl nodded, knowing Bouncy would keep his word, and smiled as well. "Very soon."

Over on the other side of the room, having mustered the courage to enter, Lightning Lad leaned in to Phantom Girl.

"You're gonna tell him, right?"

She gave him a small salute – before jumping in shock into the air as there was a sound like a sonic pulse behind her and an accompanying flash of light. When the light had died down it took her only a few seconds to leap out of Lightning Lad's arms and into those of the only slightly surprised man exiting the time bubble.

"Superman!" she squealed, burying her face elatedly into the shield on his chest.

"Hey, Phantom Girl!"

Without looking at his face she could tell from his tone that he was taken aback at her more-exuberant-than-usual greeting. Deciding to immediately alleviate his confusion, she leaned up to whisper in his ear.

"Ceremony interrupted. Don't say a word."

Before he could acknowledge that in any way, Superman was already stumbling under the weight of Lightning Lad as the other man tackled him to the ground with a fierce noogie. Phantom Girl lifted expertly away and giggled in the air as she observed the attack.

"Hey Supes! Miss me?"

"I missed you a little more _before_ I saw you, Lightning Lad," Superman mumbled into the other's arm. He was suddenly freed and lying solo on the floor. "Every time?"

"You bet!" Lightning Lad grinned cockily and reached out a hand to help the floored hero to his feet. "Wouldn't want your life getting boring, now would we?"

Superman openly rolled his eyes but didn't have time to retort that there was an absolutely minimal chance of him getting _bored_ with his life before there was a Saturn Girl in his arms and three Triplicates clinging to his shoulders and wrapped around his stomach. Bouncing Boy chose that exact moment to crash into the caped man in ball-form with a shout of greeting, and send the whole pile of superheroes tumbling to the floor, alternately laughing, groaning and scolding him.

He deflated on his back next to Superman with one and a half Triplicates and Saturn Girl's hair splayed across him, and playfully stuck out his hand with a wide grin that did not need to be faked.

"Good to see ya, Clarky!"

Superman shook his hand while peeling White Triplicate from his chest. "Heya Bouncy."

He tried his best not to let his awkwardness show as he heaved himself up and gently placed Saturn Girl on her feet on the floor, noting the Trips reforming into one body by Bouncing Boy behind him. He glanced up at Cosmic Boy as the Legionnaire extended a cool hand in greeting. Relieved at the excuse not to have to deal with the apparently-unlucky couple before he had gotten his facts and his speech straight, he grinned winningly at the former Legion leader and shook the offered hand.

"Good to see you again, Superman. I'll assume you've been busy."

"Ah, well, you know. Intergalactic takeovers, homicidal bald businessmen, cats stuck in trees…"

He managed to get a laugh out of the supercilious man, which only served to widen his own grin.

It just felt right arriving back here: and the feeling never changed no matter how many times he'd been though this. No matter how many noogies he'd received, no matter how awkward the amusement that sprung from having multiple women plastering themselves across him, no matter how oddly fun and freaky it was to be decked by a giant bouncy ball so many times he really should have learned to dodge by now, he felt inexpressibly happy here.

It was home.

Saturn Girl had slipped against his side during this interaction and was continuing her interrupted embrace as he wrapped his right arm around her shoulders.

"I missed you, Clark. How have you been?"

She drew back to look into his eyes as he spoke.

"Good. As busy as usual. How 'bout you guys?"

"The same." She smiled pleasantly at him, but her next words did not leave her lips. "_I'll_ _assume you want to talk about what happened_ _here_?" She continued at his subtle nod. "_I'll meet you in your room in ten minutes, alright_?"

He nodded one more time and leaned down to kiss her forehead, murmuring though his smile that he had missed her too, before pulling away, accepting a high-five from a grinning Lightning Lad, and exiting the room for the quarters wing.

--

On the desk were his favorite pictures. In Metropolis, the pictures around his apartment were of himself and coworkers, with a few from his childhood and of his parents scattered amongst them. Back in Smallville the pictures were mostly of him when he was growing up, often with his parents, rarely with friends, mostly alone.

But here all of the pictures were of him smiling with his friends or his family – whether nerdy Clark, superpowered Clark, awkward Superman or valiant Superman. Here were pictures of him floating in the air in shock while being simultaneously attacked by three of the same girl. Here were pictures of an extremely scrawny-looking Superman smiling with all of his best friends, as beside him a certain redhead was giving him bunny ears while grinning cheerfully. Here were pictures of the mighty Superman blushing as he received one kiss on either cheek and two on his forehead from three Triplicates and a Saturn Girl and one exuberant hug around the chest from Phantom Girl as he attempted to blow out the candles on the cake below him without deep-freezing it.

He grinned when he noticed the holoprint of him coated in something orangey-brown that he had been informed he did not want to have identified, while Bouncy laughed his head off at his sheepish-yet-horrified expression.

He never _did_ ask what that creature had been.

His smile widened when he saw the old-fashioned photograph of his mother and father holding him as a baby in a blanket with his Kryptonian family crest on it. Nowhere else in the universe would such a picture be safe. He had often wondered why his parents had even bothered taking it. Though, of course, they had had no idea at the time what their young son was going to be in the future.

_The near future and the very, very far future_, he thought in amusement.

Aside from the photos, his room contained a bed with the aforementioned blanket with his shield on it, a rug Bouncy had actually glued to the floor so he wouldn't keep slipping on it, a small wardrobe for his supersuit that also contained the various powersuits he had accumulated for different occasions – he found them frequently useful in a time period when he was often required to aid in a system with a red, or one time green (he didn't even ask how that worked) sun – and a dresser filled with clothes bought for him by the girls over the years.

He had been immeasurably touched when they had first presented him with his own 31st century clothing – not only by the sentiment that conveyed, but also by the fact that they had obviously gone out of their way to find him clothes that belonged fully in their time but that greatly resembled clothes from the Earth of his birth-time so he wouldn't feel so uncomfortable. His favorite was the black jacket with navy blue trimming and high open collar, because it made him feel like a secret agent.

Although the baggy tunic-thing and pants outfit was pretty welcome too after a week or so stuck in spandex.

He had just slipped into the black jacket, preparing to hum the _Mission: Impossible_ theme and dart about his room like he had done when he was younger, when there was a firm knock on his door. He jumped over and opened it up to reveal Saturn Girl; still in her supersuit though it was approaching the time when, as Lightning Lad had put it, 'all little Legionnaires should be getting their beauty sleep. Especially Timber Wolf'.

He greeted his visitor and locked the doors after she had slipped inside, continuing to study her surreptitiously as she moved across the room to sit in the hovering chair by the desk. He had gotten adept at searching out weaknesses and vulnerabilities in enemies with Kell-El as a tutor, and excelled at learning moods and temperaments from body language from Saturn Girl herself.

He used what he had gathered now to determine that the woman before him, no matter how well she masked it, was shocked, tired, regretful – and just a little bit angry. He mused over that for a while. When he arrived in the future just after the Trips' and Bouncy's wedding ceremony, he had been expecting to see excited Legionnaires filling the headquarters.

He was supposed to be arriving just in time for the party, after all.

But, using his super-hearing, he had gathered that HQ was all but empty. His closest friends were here, since this was where they chose to reside, but very few others. There was no party, and both the supposed bride and groom had been exuding dejection when he had seen them earlier; despite their cheery greetings.

"I guess you would have missed it anyway."

He turned to Saturn Girl, sitting neatly in his chair as he still stood stupidly by the doors, looking at her as he thought. Embarrassed at having been staring at her like an idiot for who-knows-how-long, he grinned and shuffled over to lean against the desk beside her.

"I suppose so – what happened? Phantom Girl said the ceremony was interrupted. By what?"

Saturn Girl sighed sadly. "Someone hacked into Takron-Galtos and almost all of the prisoners escaped."

She gave him a quick recounting of the day's events, from the wedding earlier that morning to the prison planet, back to Earth, and to the hospital. Superman's stomach clenched when she told him how badly Cham was hurt, and he reached up to take off his _Mission: Impossible_ jacket, feeling ashamed that he was goofing off while his friends were in the ICU and recovering from such a traumatic event.

"I should have been there," he whispered sullenly. "I'm sorry."

Saturn Girl smiled at him and stood, barely rising above the level of his shoulders. "Clark, nobody blames you for this. How could you possibly have known?"

"I should have been at the wedding anyway–"

She put her fingers over his mouth, that thin smile still on her lips. "Don't do this to yourself. You wouldn't have been allowed in and – as much as we don't like it – that's a fact."

"Are there any other things I'm not allowed to do that I should know about?" he asked through her fingers.

She withdrew her hand and took a couple of steps backwards, her grin becoming more genuine. "Well, if we happen to have a UP Presidential election, you can't vote. And you can't adopt either."

"Darn," he smiled, shaking his head in phony melancholy.

"I know," she played along, before her tone became more serious and musing. "Perhaps we should get you registered as a citizen anyway. If you ever do need medical care that we can't provide the UPHS can't–"

"Saturn Girl," he interrupted cheerfully. "What are the chances?"

"Higher now that you've asked that, if Bouncing Boy's movies are to be believed."

He chuckled. "He still showing you the dregs of 21st century cinema?"

"Well, yes. But Lyle has been expanding our viewing to what you called, uh, _call_ 'science fiction'?"

"Star Wars?"

She nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I think that was one. Or several. And 'Star' something else, and… another 'Star' something?" She shook her head. "Pretty uninventive with their names back then, it seems."

He shrugged. "What's in a name?"

She gave him a blank look, obviously trying to formulate an answer. He chuckled and had to restrain himself from ruffling her hair.

"That's Shakespeare. People quoted him a surprising lot in my day."

_Wow, that makes me sound old._

"Technically, you _are_ extremely old in this time period."

"'Ey!" He faked indignance. "Stay outta my dorky thoughts!"

She giggled. "You practically screamed it. And who is Shakespeare? Was he an actor? I hear they were idolized in your day…"

He ignored the jibe and its oddly sneaky accompanying smile. "Yeah, I think he was an actor, but he wrote plays mostly. He's the most famous playwright of _my day_."

"So he's your Enima Rosse."

"Who?"

She shrugged. "Our most famous playwright. She existed sometime in the 24th century, I think. What did your Shakespeare write?"

"All kinds of stuff!" He grinned, wondering if this was the only time he was actually going to use something he learned in school. "He wrote _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ and _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_… loads, actually. His most well-known one was probably _Romeo and Juliet_."

She looked intrigued. "Sounds like a love story."

"It is. Was. It's the most famous love story in my world."

"Really?" She reseated herself and gestured to him with her hand. "Tell me."

He leaned back against the desk with a smile. It felt great to be himself like this. Who back in the 21st century would have believed that dorky Clark Kent could be found in his bedroom talking Shakespeare with such a beautiful woman? Or Superman doing the same?

The thought of the Superman icon the world saw doing this almost made _him_ laugh.

He briefly outlined the plot of _Romeo and Juliet_ to her, watching her reactions with some pleasure. He was not the world's greatest storyteller, but he seemed to have kept her interest.

"It's a tragedy then."

"Well, yeah. A tragic love story." He paused. "I never actually thought about what a strange concept that is before."

They both seemed lost in their own musings for a few seconds. Saturn Girl broke it in a quietly wondering voice.

"You know, that sounds an awful lot like a legend we have on Titan. Do you think our legend was born from the story of this Shakespeare's?"

That was an interesting thought.

"I don't see why not. Titan was colonized from Earth, wasn't it?"

"At some point, yes," she answered vaguely, though he was used to receiving answers like that about groundbreaking events he might live to see, and accepted it.

"Should I go talk to Bouncy, do you think?" He rapidly changed the subject to something else that was gnawing at his mind.

She nodded somberly. "I think he could use that. Lightning Lad's terrified of saying something wrong and Cos is terrified of insulting him or being too insensitive. Timber Wolf says he can't think of anything to say, Cham's… well, you know, and Lyle's still off chasing prison escapees."

"What about the girls?"

"How would we know what to do?" she asked almost hopelessly. "We're having a hard enough time dealing with Triplicate Girl."

He nodded, wondering if he would be any better off than them, really. What did he know of marriage, or even love? The closest thing he had was a crush and somewhat strange hero-damsel relationship back home as reference.

"Just do your best," she said suddenly, and he noticed that she had stood and placed a hand on his shoulder. He knew she hadn't been snooping in his thoughts, but that she had probably just gotten an impression from his raging mind.

"And thanks, Clark."

He smiled as she caught him in a final hug before turning and exiting his room, leaving him to stare down at his black jacket and the picture of him and the others crushed up on the couch; Bouncy and Triplicate Girl extremely close though they hadn't been involved back then. He grinned at the happy dazed expression on Bouncy's face and the beatific smile on Triplicate Girl's.

Then his eyes fell onto the boy frowning at Lightning Lad as the latter crushed him up against Superman's arm in an effort to squeeze into the holoframe.

His stomach lurched.


	4. Lies I

**In all likelihood, this chapter will not answer any questions you have. It'll just create more.**

**But this is the beginning of what will be a pretty big part of this story, so I hope you enjoy!**

**_Warning_: None.**

* * *

**_.: Quondam - Lies :._**

You will never be strong enough  
You will never be good enough  
You were never conceived in love  
You will not rise above

_-: Lies, Evanescence_

* * *

FOUR

* * *

_**.: 7 February, 3045 :.**_

* * *

"Is there anything you need."

Incorrect syllable emphasis.

"I am content."

She sighed.

"Is there anything you need…?"

Not quite perfect.

"I am content."

She tapped in another command and sighed once more at the correct pitch and with the correct power.

"Is there anything you need?"

Perfect.

She stood and stretched out her arms and legs to their limits. Saving her work and switching off the lights, she couldn't quite help glancing up at Screen 5. Her eyes glowed faintly purple in the dark as they roved over the design digiprinted there. With a wave of her hand across the tapboard the image flickered away; untraceable by any but her.

She exited the lab and was met by a guard android that she did not recognize. It was obviously a brand new line – not programmed properly to protect her. As it shifted, her eyes and mind followed his movement, painstakingly tracking the motion: but her body could not react in time.

The guard slammed his forearm into her stomach.

"Identification."

The demand had not even been completed before a laser blast screamed down the hall and blew the android's head from its shoulders. Its monotone ended in a metallic whir as the melted chunk of machinery clanged across the hallway and came to a rolling halt against the wall.

A shadow fell over her.

"Are you critically injured?"

Hunched over on the floor, clutching her stomach in her arms, she hissed up at the high-guard through the pain, "I am _content_."

If the other mechanoid was surprised or taken aback by her unusual choice of words, he either chose not to show it or was incapable of doing so. He gave a curt nod and held out a hand. She felt a twinge of annoyance but surrendered to the need to accept the aid, hoping fervently that he would not remove his arm from her grip after she had regained her footing. He did not disappoint.

It took longer than usual for her to reach her apartment, and once she was inside and had shooed the high-guard back to the Central Hive Chamber, she curled into as tight a ball as she could on the floor and screamed a curse of pain to the ceiling.

As soon as she had ripped enough air back into her lungs she let out another cry – this one of fury and panic.

After a long moment of silence, and summoning back her calm, she rose as gracefully as possible to her feet and stumbled to the bathroom. She emptied what little food there was in her stomach into the basin there and immediately collapsed cross-legged on the cold metal floor, her arms folded over her distended belly.

"Well, at least they're protecting me. Of course, I am not their object. You…" Her fingertips grazed the skin of her abdomen. "You. They need you. And I can't even express how powerful that makes you."

A smile traced across her lips as she pulled the metallic band from her hair; letting the thick blonde locks tumble down to her waist. The faint purple light shining from her eyes reflected eerily off of the surfaces in the bathroom in the dark, and she clambered once again to her feet.

As she sat down before her personal tapboard, she felt an increasingly familiar pounding against the wall of her abdomen, but let it pass without pointless comment and opened the file she had saved earlier. As the time drew ever nearer, it became less and less imperative that she keep her project secret, and she felt the risk of opening the file in her lab was negligible enough for her to be able to gaze at her own child as she worked.

The file she had brought up across the giant screen depicted a tiny person, standing, though theoretically it was physically impossible for such a small child to do so: lacking the necessary muscle and bone development. His arms – for she knew her baby was male – were pulled out to the sides with his palms facing her. Beside this image on the left was the same picture; reversed to show her his back view.

The baby had blond hair, with skin a shade or two lighter than her own. His arms and legs were short and chubby, his stomach and chest rounded. Stubby fingers were curled in to tiny palms, with underdeveloped toes on the ends of miniature baby feet. She smiled, like always, at the sight of his oversized ears, his round cheeks – framing a blank face. She had no desire to taint something so beautiful as the face of her son with cold calculations.

She tapped in a short string of commands: too preoccupied with staring into the void below the child's hairline – so soon to be filled – to interface directly with the computer.

As soon as she had completed the code input, the images began changing. He began growing before her eyes – losing some of the insulating fat, his limbs lengthening, his body stretching. When the child appeared to be seven years old, the images froze as they were. She quickly scanned the information whirring past her eyes on the screen to either side of the pictures. She knew her calculations were correct, but she felt an uncharacteristic need to check them consistently anyway.

When finished, she nodded to herself and allowed the program to continue its processing of her digiprints. The next changes were more obvious than just the child's steady growth. She watched the Transmogrification alter the texture of his skin, as usual, but smiled faintly with pride when her own adjustments to the procedure became noticeable.

If her child had to be a full-mechanoid, over her rotting corpse would he be turned into a metallic monster like the rest of them on the planet. And it was through this line of thinking that she had developed the new program that combined the best of her own partial-mechanoid body with the highlights of the Transmogrification.

One of a kind.

Though, of course, there was always the possibility of unforeseeable side effects. She did not allow the idea to plague her.

As the sun set, unseen, outside of the Great City Field, her mind and her fingers were working industriously on the greatest project of her life.

* * *

"Aren't they beautiful, sweetheart?"

The young boy glanced down at the dismal sight before him – dozens of flowers that may, at one point, have had the potential to blossom into beautiful roses of many different colors, sizes, shapes. But they were brown or yellowed, withered and sunken; bringing to mind the radiation-burned flesh to be seen when there were accidents down in the mine. The soil they staggered from was littered with rocks both grey and gold, clumping in dirty mounds despite the care his mother took to ensure its upkeep.

"Um," He wasn't sure how to formulate his reply – unwilling to outright lie to her. "They're different."

Her smile faltered. "Different?" She followed his lead in staring down at the once-blooms, though his gaze stemmed from shame, awkwardness and an unwillingness to meet her beautiful blue eyes, and hers was out of some sad curiosity.

"Different. Special."

His efforts were futile though, since – just as her gaze had fallen from him – she was no longer listening to her son.

"They're dead."

There was a pause. To anybody walking past, indeed, her statement would carry great truth. But the boy set his jaw and lowered to one knee, reaching out small hands towards the plants before him. Using his thumbnail, he gently scraped the sickly brown outer layer from the stem of the closest rose: almost wincing as it came off like skin peeling from a sunburn.

But beneath the blackened exterior, the stem was a dull green. A smile crawled across his lips, and he turned to look at his mother, still standing behind him with mild shock registering on her features.

"No they aren't."

At the elated smile that spread across her beautiful face, he felt a flying warmth growing in his belly, and that wonderful, rippling delight at the realization that he had made her happy.

He jumped up and threw his arms around the woman's waist, grinning into her stomach as she held him close to her.

"Thank you, Brin."

He closed his eyes, then fluttered them open when he felt something tap onto the glass of his helmet. He looked up to see her laying her head on top of his as best she could, miming a kiss at him. He blushed and pushed away from her.

"Mom…"

"I can't help it," she smiled winningly. "What would I do without you, sweetheart?"

_Well, the house would be an awful lot cleaner if I wasn't around_, he thought musingly.

They both turned in the direction of said house as the clanging of the front brace door slamming shut echoed through their property and off of the dome's glass walls.

"Daddy's home!" she lilted. "Go say hello!" She accompanied her gentle command with a little push at the small of her son's back.

He stumbled slightly but recovered his footing and took off for the house across the garden at a full run. When he reached the back door he paused and turned to look back at her.

She was sitting on the ground in front of her roses, gazing at them with her fingers hovering just inches from where the stem he had exposed was still practically shining green in the brown of the garden; and what of the city there was to be seen outside their containment dome.

Her chestnut brown hair curled thickly around her shoulders, raggedly long in places and scruffily short in others. Tendrils framed her face and brushed against the corners of her brilliant blue eyes, coiling around her ears and sneaking under the collar of the lavender dress she wore beneath her shining white containment suit. Her skin was angel-pale, her features soft. Her lips were full and gentle, tinged pink to match her cheeks, the lower one jutting out proudly even in repose. The white scar on her jaw was almost unnoticeable at this distance, and the one on her forehead was almost all covered by the wispy ringlets at her hairline.

Cerulean eyes shone from beneath thick brown eyebrows as the setting sun behind her sent a golden glow spinning through her hair and off of the planes of her face. He smiled at how peaceful she looked and, as young as he was, even he could tell that she did not belong on such a barren planet.

Without further thought on the matter, the boy rushed inside the house, not registering the brace door falling closed and locking automatically behind him, and barreled straight into his father's midriff.

"Hey, Dad," The greeting was muffled in the front of his father's brown shirt.

"Good afternoon, Brin." His father held the child to him for a moment before pulling away and making his way towards the laboratory wing. "Have you had a good day?"

"Um,"

How did he make it sound impressive that he had been cleaning his room, mopping some dirt that he had had _nothing to do with_ off of the kitchen and living room floors, aiding his mom with her impending bake sale, and attending to flowerbed weeds all day?

He grinned sheepishly. "Yes…?"

Although he didn't say anything, Mar Londo raised one graying eyebrow, and that one small move was enough to make his young son blush and look away.

"I see. How is your mother?"

Brin rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh, she's okay. I think she's kinda upset about her roses."

"Mmm," Mar mumbled something unintelligible before the lab doors suddenly closed in his son's face.

The boy stumbled back a few steps in surprise. He hadn't noticed how far they had walked. His face fell when he realized suddenly that that was the extent of the contact he was going to have with his father that day.

Once Dr. Mar Londo was in his lab, there was nothing on this or any planet that could get him out.

Brin sighed and turned to walk back down the long hallway towards the living room. After dumping his containment suit in the pod by the front hall, he swung himself onto the sofa and waved his hand over the power pad. The holoscreen before him flickered on, and he used one swiping finger to move between channels.

Boring sports. Worse sports. Ancient sports. Game show. CG show. Documentary. Another documentary...

He finally settled on the news; where a man in a blue suit that looked as though it had been manufactured by blind Venutians, and a young woman whose hair brought to mind a spaceship carrier crashing in nebulous fog were cataloguing the latest of Towëtron's statements.

"-llowing Eiliani's recent groundbreaking announcement, Towëtron has made public its consideration of following their lead in leaving the United Planets. President Wazzo herself traveled yesterday to the planet to enter talks with Minister Gawa."

The woman continued seamlessly on from her partner. "They are not the first to speak of separation from the longstanding United Planets organization, and it seems they will not be the last. Separatist intentions have been declared by five other key systems, though it remains to be seen what will emerge from these statements."

"R.J. Brande, president of the well-known stellar manufacturing conglomerate Brande Industries, has recently made it known that if the situation demands it he will use his significant influence in the galaxy to try and support the United Planets and prevent its possible downfall. More on this as it develops."

"In other news, the teenage criminal Sarya Finnal from Venegar has escaped incarceration. Science Police are curren–"

He waved the monitor off. It was strange to think that there were systems out there that were not part of the United Planets. For the most part, as far as he was aware, they were the poorer, or more barbaric systems – or the uninhabited ones. He knew, for instance, that his father's base on Raal fell outside the jurisdiction of the UP.

All of a sudden there was an enticing smell wafting in from the kitchen, and as soon as he recognized the scent he was running straight for it.

"They're done!"

"Uh huh," his mother affirmed with a smile; remote-directing the baking tray out onto the counter. "Nothing beats the smell of old fashioned home-baked cookies, huh Brin?"

His mouth was too full of said cookies to answer past a nod.

She rolled her eyes and gingerly pushed five more steaming hot cookies over to her son as he stood on his toes with his arms pushed up onto the counter.

"Six cookies for my six year old."

He gave her a look. "Thass only phibe."

"What was that, cookie-face?"

After swallowing and giggling, he gave her another, more pointed stare. "That's only five."

"Yeah, but you've already scarfed one, you little mongrel." Her face was lit up with a smile as she leaned over the counter and ruffled his short black hair, twisting the natural white streak at his forehead around her finger as she did so.

He felt a surge of affection, and vulnerability stemming from the news clip he had just seen, and he ducked under the floating counter to hug his mother around the waist.

"Mom, why do people want to leave the United Planets?"

She sighed and delved her fingers further into his hair in a show of comfort. "People want to feel safe. And the United Planets aren't doing a good job of making people feel safe right now."

"Why?"

"I don't know, sweetheart. I imagine it's different for everybody. Maybe people don't like how the Science Police work. Maybe they don't like abiding by all the UP laws."

There was a little pause as the boy processed her words. He then pulled back to look at her; cobalt blue eyes shining into her almost identical pair. "What makes _you_ feel safe?"

"Me?" She chuckled and squeezed him against her body. "My little boy. I feel safe with you – and you're always safe with me."

The moment lasted a long while: broken only when the smell of the cookies became too much, and Brin had to break free to grab one of his allotted five and stuff it whole into his mouth.

* * *

"Mamma?"

"Not right now, darling. Laiyla, could you…?"

"Of course, Madam President."

There was a little rush of cold air before she felt arms wrap securely around her and lift her into the air. There was that familiar feeling of suspension in the void, and the terror that came with it, before there was a warm, solid surface pressed against her side. Her hand raced around to smack into that surface – above the core of the thing's chest and into the cold metal shoulder.

"Don't want Lala. Want Mommy."

"Your mother is busy now, Miss Tinya," The tinny voice was not soothing. "I will take you: outside. Do you wish to see the, sky, Miss Tinya?"

"No sky. Mommy."

"Your mother is busy now, Miss Tinya. I will take you: elsewhere. Do you wish to see the, gardens, Miss Tinya?"

"No gardens!" Her voice was a squeal, and she could feel warm tears amassing in her eyes. The cold air stung them, and she didn't like it. "Lala I want my Mommy!"

"Your mother is busy now, Miss Tinya."

She could feel frustration building in her stomach. It was not a nice feeling.

"I will take you: wherever you wish to go. Where do you wish to go, Miss Tinya?"

That was it. The coiling feeling in her stomach and the burning feelings in her face and throat merged into one long, loud, rippling scream. At one point she thought she might have been crying the word 'mommy', but really she was unsure what exactly was coming out of her mouth.

All she knew was that she was extremely unhappy and that nobody was listening to her. She had to make them listen.

Only a few moments passed before she saw the white cloaked figure of her mother approaching through blurry eyes. She screamed louder – in case she had not yet noticed her.

"Tinya!"

The voice was sharp, and more unpleasant a sound than even Laiyla's hollow monotone.

"Tinya, will you be quiet?! I have extremely important business to attend to, and you are being distracting, annoying, and downright _bratty_. Laiyla," The woman's attention shifted from her to the metallic woman whose arms she was in. "Take my daughter out to the gardens, and stay there until it is time for dinner."

"Yes, Madam President."

A few moments passed in a horrified blur before there was the sound of slamming doors – and her mother was gone.

What was 'business'? Her little mind whirred with the connections. Was it… somebody else? Somebody she loved more than Tinya? The child felt her eyes well up again, but her mother's stinging words seared through her mind and she choked back that expression of her sadness. Crying was not allowed. Mommy was always mad when she cried. She hiccuped on her residual tears, and tried to ignore the stinging in her throat.

Maybe you're not supposed to cry when you're upset.

"L-Lala?"

"Yes, Miss Tinya?"

"What you do when you sad?"

There was a pause. "I am not capable of feeling: sadness, Miss Tinya."

"Oh." Tinya twiddled her tiny, pale fingers as the android carried her through a long, essentially bare hallway. "Why?"

"Such an emotion would decrease my functional ability."

"Wh-what?"

"Sadness would interfere with my taking care of you."

"Sadness… is bad?"

"Yes."

She considered this for a few minutes. It did make sense – Mommy was angry when she was sad, _she_ never felt good when she was sad: and Mommy was never sad.

"Lala, how do you not be sad?"

"I do not know, Miss Tinya."

"Can you guess, pwease?"

"Redirect thought patterns."

She felt a sudden flare of anger, and huffed impatiently. "Lala, I don't unstand."

"Think about something other than that which is saddening you."

Tinya silenced herself. She was silent when Laiyla exited through the door, silent throughout the long, long walk to the Gardens of Towëtron, and silent for many long moments as Laiyla walked her around, pointing out all the flowers and wildlife to be seen amongst the billowing vegetation. She was silent until her thoughts came to a sudden close.

"Lala, I was thinking about flowers."

"Flowers, Miss Tinya? Why?"

"I like flowers."

"Which flowers do you like, Miss Tinya?"

She pursed her lips, and looked down to the border just beside Laiyla's feet. "I like roses, bestest."

"Why, Miss Tinya?"

"They pretty. Give me a flower, Lala."

Laiyla bent down and severed one of the blue roses there from its stem. She quickly razed the thorns blunt, stripped away the deep green leaves from its surface, and inserted it into her young charge's black hair, just above her ear.

"Beautiful, Miss Tinya."

"I am?" The child beamed.

"Beautiful, Miss Tinya."

Tinya smiled happily. "You right, Lala. I'm not sad nenymore."

"That is good, Miss Tinya."

"Story, Lala. Sit."

Laiyla looked quickly around before making her way over to a white stone bench a few paces away. She settled herself in its center, rearranging the little girl on her lap.

"Which story do you wish to hear, Miss Tinya?"

"The gweat hero story."

"Very well, Miss Tinya. Once upon a time, the world of Earth was a dark and frightened place. The people were becoming overwhelmed by problems they had created themselves years ago: destroying their planet – and themselves – piece by poisoned piece."

Tinya felt a little smile grow on her face. Though she didn't understand every word, her young imagination could place meaning on every clause, weaving for her the well memorized events that Laiyla spoke of.

"The people with power were the people with enough influence to get and stay there. These were the people of the underworld; the people with pasts buried so deep in their records that nobody could retrace their crimes."

The familiar chill raced down her spine, accompanied by the pleasant shiver in her stomach as she recognized what came next.

"And then one day someone appeared and changed all that. The crime that had enveloped the planet was stopped in its tracks. The evil people at the heads of the countries and the businesses were exposed and torn down. The world became a brighter place.

"The person who saved them all was Earth's greatest hero, and he called himself 'Superman'. After a lifetime of saving the world, Superman disappeared into history – because a hero never dies, Miss Tinya. A hero lives forever because what they did can not be taken back. Because what they did affects everyone. Superman ushered in a new age of peace, and that age lasts still."

Tinya squirmed excitedly in Laiyla's lap. As much as she loved the intro, this was her favorite part.

"Tell me bout the baddies!"

"Well, first, and longest, there was Lex Luthor – the man at the head of LuthorCorp, in charge of…

"But Superman raced in just in time and, using his freezing breath, he…

"…crying out for help, Superman flew faster than a Kanovenesian rocket blast and caught her just before…

"…help to the Justice League, writing about their exploits. But she was kidnapped by an evil…

"…mission: to digitize the Earth after claiming all its knowledge. Brainiac was one of Superman's greatest foes, and came very close to killing…"

Tinya had fallen into a lilting almost-sleep by this point in the orange glow of the dwindling daylight, just barely registering the names of Superman's various evil foes in the back of her mind, with unique little shivers in her chest for each.

* * *

"Happy birthday, dear."

"Thank you Mrs. Nalaina."

She accepted the kiss on her forehead.

"Happy birthday! Have you got any presents yet?"

She returned the exuberant handshake and smiled up at the graying man before her. "Thank you, Mr. Nalaina. And yes – Mummy and Daddy got me this necklace."

She felt his gaze fall to her neck, where a large pink gem cut into a perfectly smooth sphere lay in the curve of her throat; the black onyx ring wrapped diagonally around it warm against her skin though it had been shockingly cold when first put on.

"My, that _is_ a beautiful little bauble. I imagine that cost a pretty penny!"

"Come along, Huton," There was suddenly a flustered Mrs. Nalaina in her vision, hustling her husband away. "Let's go get some refreshments and let the poor dear greet the rest of her guests."

As the pair walked away the young girl stared after them in gentle amusement and curiosity.

_For stars's sake, does the man have a tactical bone in his body!?_

She had to restrain a giggle at the fussy woman's errant thought, and was able to shake the hand of the next person in line with a dazzlingly beautiful genuine smile on her face.

It was a long time before she had worked through the entire company of people there to wish her birthday wishes. The evening passed in a blur of rich gowns swirling to stuffy music, mundane conversation and tact that she could not allow to fall.

It was a blessing to retire out to her private bedroom balcony and stare at the stars. Behind her burned the five old-fashioned candles salvaged from her giant cake, casting a golden glow about the room. Her pale blonde hair had been half left loose to hang down to the small of her back, half piled up into an intricate bun held in place with heavily jeweled clasps. Her dress was pink – naturally – with white detailing around the wide sweetheart neckline, and a white satin sash around her waist. The extra fabric from the large bow tied at her hip was long and almost touched the floor, where the heavy pink fabric pooled around her feet. She wore lace gloves that almost reached her elbows, but pulled them from her skin as quickly as possible: though they did not itch, and the night was by no means a warm one.

She could see Saturn burning a deep orange in space above her; could just make out the ring of ice and debris and space stations surrounding it and spanning almost to them here on Titan. It was completely quiet, as her heavy faux-wood door was blocking out any sound from downstairs rippling through the house, and her tower was too far above the ground for her to be able to hear the sounds of the party raging without her down there and out in the gardens.

She closed her eyes and sifted through all the minds she could hear. None of the other telepaths there were bothering to block her expert intrusion – even if they had known about it she had the feeling they would not have stood a chance against her.

She remembered their one-time trip to Earth when she had been younger, and how her telepathy had been so weak that she could only barely pick up conscious thoughts of the people milling around her, with no access whatsoever to the unconscious mind. The lack of ability had frightened her, even as a toddler in her mother's arms, and once home on Titan she had dived into her training and into her studies in an effort to make sure that never happened again. Although she had since been informed that her telepathy would always be far stronger on Titan than anywhere else in the galaxy, never again was she going to feel that resounding uselessness: she was determined.

Soon the sickeningly pallid, sycophantic thoughts of her parents' company became too much for the young girl, and she expanded her range beyond her towering home, out to the city. A great proportion of them were asleep – since it was extremely early in the morning by now – and their slumbering minds very nearly sent her into unconsciousness also.

In a bid of panic to overcome the sensation, she forced her mind further outwards in a frightened burst of power.

Suddenly in her head there were so many clamoring voices that even her powerful mind couldn't identify them all. She cried out in pain as what must have been billions of thoughts from hundreds of planets screamed through her head, blurring her vision and her thoughts. They were shutting down her motor function and she collapsed to her knees – shutting down her mental function and her mind began to go blank with the pressure. She couldn't concentrate on anything, any one thought, voice, mind; nevermind attempt to stop the inflow.

She screamed in agony as the thoughts continued to build. Her body crumpled on the floor and her hands wrapped around her head, fingers tearing into her hair as expensive hairpins went clattering and flying across the room.

And all of a sudden through the fuzzing blackness and feverish uproar there came a mind that was stronger than the rest. It was almost like a white light, a shining beacon in the chaos of her head, so, so powerful and bright, and she reached desperately out to it with what was left of her consciousness.

Once she made firm contact with that one mind the others all shut out. She gasped and heaved air into her lungs; her head still stinging and fuzzing from the agonizing contact of before.

The mind she was linked with felt gentle and pure, soft and warm. She mentally relaxed into the contact, wishing more than anything for this presence, this person, what or whoever it was, to enfold her in their glow and hold her close and comfortingly. It felt like a light, more so than before, shining on her face and warming her whole body.

Soon she became aware of a calm curiosity emanating from the mind. After a moment's deliberation, she decided to fully open the connection between them. The respone was immediate.

_"Who are you?"_

_"My name is Imra Ardeen. You saved me; thank you."_

There was a short silence from the other being as it contemplated her words. "_Imra Ardeen. Where are you?"_

_"I am on Titan."_ Normally she would be kicking herself for so easily revealing something like that to someone she could not visually or mentally identify. But there was something about this one... it was as though there was nothing surrounding this mind; no past, no memories, no unconscious thoughts – it was all that existed of the person. "_Are you a phantom?"_

_"A phantom?"_

_"I hear there are worlds of phantoms, and a zone of phantoms, and that when people die, they turn into phantoms and roam the galaxies looking for eternal peace…"_

_"I am not a phantom."_

_"Oh_." She felt strangely crushed. "_What are you then?"_

The light paused again, thinking about their answer._ "I am a person. Are you not a person, Imra Ardeen?"_

_"Yes, I am. I am a girl. Today is my fifth birthday."_

_"Oh, I think I see. You have been alive for five years?"_

_"Yes. How… how long have you been al-around?"_

There was a longer silence, and she could feel her light trying to find the answer to her question, but the conclusion she felt was the one it voiced.

_"I am unsure. I have been conscious for fifty-four days."_

Conscious?_ "Do you have amnesia?"_

_"Amnesia?"_

_"Did you lose your memory?"_

_"Possibly."_

She was confused – and intrigued. Who exactly was she talking to that they had no past, and no deeper level of thought than the one on which they conversed? "_Where are you?"_

_"Uncertain. I am alone, and all I can see is red."_

_"Can you hear anything?"_

_"Sometimes I hear talking. But not like this. Not like you're talking to me."_

_"This is telepathy. Very few people communicate like this."_

_"Are you using this 'telepathy' or am I?"_

_"I am, though your mind is linked to mine so we can have a two-way conversation."_

_"Two-way..."_

There was a long silence from the other end of her mental bond. She missed the feeling of the mind of her Light against hers, and realized that she had subconsciously delved deep, deep into the other person's consciousness – but even so she could not find anything there.

The person must have amnesia. There was absolutely no other explanation.

_"Are you safe? Have you been captured by someone?"_

_"I do not know. I _feel_ safe."_

_"Can I help you?"_

_"No. You found me – can I help _you_?"_

_"No. But I would like it if you would stay with me, and talk to me. I feel…"_

_"Lonely?"_ the voice supplied.

_"Yes, lonely. But I feel… connected to you."_

_"You _are_ connected to me. You said so yourself_."

She laughed, and the emotion obviously registered in her mind and was transferred to the unknown person.

_"You are laughing? Why?"_

She swallowed the laughter. How could she explain that the reason she was laughing was the wonderfully naïve way that this gentle mind was speaking and reacting to her?

Something suddenly slotted into place in her mind.

_"Are you a child?"_

_"Child?"_

_"I have never read the mind of a child like this before. Is that why I can't see your past? But… you sound so grown up. Is it even possible for–"_

The mind interrupted her musing. "_Child?"_

_"Um, a small person? A young person, youth; baby?"_

_"'Baby'. I know that word. I hear it often."_

Her mind went completely blank.

No, not possible.

It was not possible for the person she was speaking to to be a baby. No baby could speak like they were speaking. No baby whose mind she had ever encountered had been so... _coherent_. And how could a baby's mind be so strong anyway? Almost as strong as her own, though in a detectably different way.

But… they had said that they had been conscious for fifty-four days. How long was that? She did the calculation quickly in her head.

That was just under seven standard weeks.

She leapt to her feet and raced from her bedroom.

_"Imra Ardeen?"_

To the library on the next floor down. She soared through the shelves, finally stopping in front of one she had never touched before.

_"Imra Ardeen?!"_

She found the old-fashioned paper book she knew was there, pulling it down from its perch and settling the dusty tome on her lap as she sat cross-legged on the floor.

The voice in her head was growing faint and panicked. "_Imra Ardeen!"_

She flicked through the thick book: thankful for its presence saving her from having to sneak past all the guests downstairs to reach the computer terminal. She flipped through the book, through the various stages of pregnancy, until she reached page 168.

'Week 6 – Brain develops.'

She was communicating with a thirteen week old _baby_? In… in its mother's womb still?

_"Imra Ardeen!" _The baby had passed panic now and sounded as though it was close to tears.

The young girl felt a swell of pity and another emotion in her chest that she could not identify.

_"I am here, little baby."_

Relief washed through their connection, and she was almost driven to tears herself by the force of it.

_"Imra Ardeen, where did you go?"_

_"I had to find something out, little one. And you may just call me Imra."_

_"Please don't leave me again, Imra."_

There was a faint lacing of desperation in that plea, so tentative and heartbreaking that she found herself making a promise that she knew she had no right to make or to keep. That shining presence, still glowing wondrously white in her head was calling to her more strongly than anything she had ever felt before.

_"I will always be with you, my little Light."_


	5. Breathe into Me I

**Dates in italics denote flashbacks. Non-italic dates are just... letting you know the date :)**

**Sorry this is late... school _really, really _sucks at the moment. Also due to this, there will be no update next week. Unless I break a leg and am forced to stay home.**

**This is unlikely.**

**:s Sorry again!**

**_Warning_: _None_.**

* * *

**_.: Part 2 - Breathe into Me :._**

And this is how it feels when I ignore the words you spoke to me.  
And this is where I lose myself when I keep running away from you.  
And this is who I am when, when I don't know myself anymore;  
And this is what I choose when it's all left up to me.

_-: Breathe into Me, Red_

* * *

FIVE

* * *

The machinery whirred loudly – from somewhere in the far reaches of the lab gears were clanking, and the hissing of steam echoed through the room in a monotone. Under the bright white lights a form was hunched over an oversized metal table, tinkering with various tools and appliances; grunting periodically in annoyance and making scrawled notes on a datapad.

A tiny beeping noise soon squawked shrilly in his ears, and the word 'Warning!' began to flash red on the screen before him.

He stood up suddenly, turning so that his grey hair and the top half of his face were illuminated by the spotlights around him, and stared over at the door, taking a few steps towards it. The warning signal continued to flicker on the screen as a few seconds later the sirens began to scream. Red lights flashed around the lab as the shield doors fell protectively with great wrenching sounds all around him.

He stayed tense but proudly upright, watching for any signs of the intruder.

It was then that the blast doors directly in front of him glowed white for a split second before smashing apart and hurtling through the room. The force of the blast sent the old man skidding chaotically several feet across the metal floor on his back.

Once he had come to a halt he rose to a sitting position with his hands braced either side of him, looking up in shock and indignation at the two figures as they appeared silhouetted against the light of the red fire blazing in the decimated doorway. The large one moved to lower its arm while the tinier of the two shifted to the right, walking forwards into the view of the felled scientist.

As he glanced up the woman's form he noticed high black boots and pink trousers beneath a purple tunic, crossed over her chest and clasped at the front with a shining purple and silver brooch. Her hands emerged from widely flared pink sleeves, and were attached imperiously to her hips, her weight on one leg, her shoulders pulled back.

Her choppy red hair fell over a pale, freckled face and burning green eyes – matching the terrible smile on her darkly rouged lips.

"Knock knock, Doc."

* * *

The sun was rising over the city in a shimmer of gold light; beams shining off of the surfaces of the grand buildings of New Metropolis and dancing through the slowly busying streets. The rays streamed with the breeze through the roadside trees and plants, and soon they illuminated the quiet building in which most of the Legion were either getting a much needed lie-in – or getting their breakfast.

The ops room was pretty much empty, though the sounds of the sluggishly rising Legionnaires wafted through the cracks in the door and the metal of the walls along with the enticing smells of hot food.

Lightning Lad sat on the arm of his favorite control desk chair with his feet on the black neoleather cushion. His face broke into a grin when the forms of his parents materialized on the holoprojector in his hand.

"Hey Mom, hi Dad."

His mother smiled beatifically out at him. "Garth, it's been a while – have you been busy?"

His grin turned wry – though he managed to keep it from turning into a grimace – and he reached up with his free hand to sheepishly rub the back of his neck through his thick red hair. "You have no idea. How are you guys?"

"We're all fine," his father nodded at him, then turned around at a clumping sound behind them. "Ah, here she is!"

There was a small delay before:

"Garth!"

His stomach clenched when he first heard the young voice, and as his sister came fully into view, he felt an awful pulling in his chest. "Ayla. You're getting tall."

The slender redheaded girl put her hands on her hips and grinned happily at him. "Well it's about time too!"

He nodded, and forced the cheerfulness back into his voice. "It's good to see you. I do have a reason for calling you though – did you hear what happened at Takron-Galtos?"

"I heard there was an attack," his father asserted. "But the warden called us yesterday and said that Mekt was safe."

His mother suddenly looked worried. "He _is_ safe, right Garth?"

"Yeah, he's fine. I actually wanted to tell you that Warden Kored pushed up his probation to tomorrow."

There was shocked silence from all three people in the holoframe.

"T-tomorrow?" Ayla repeated in an excited whisper.

"Yeah – during the breakout he stopped six other highly dangerous prisoners from escaping, so the warden decided he had made his 'reformation' point perfectly clear. I'm picking him up this afternoon at the dock outside the Superman Museum. I know he'll want to see you all, so–"

"You're coming to visit! Wonderful! And I think it's high time you did anyway, Garth."

His mother still managed to sound as though she was scolding him even as she smiled, and he returned the expression as he swung his legs around and landed neatly on the floor.

"We will, just as soon as I can get free. I've got to go now."

"Alright, goodbye son."

"Bye Garth!" Ayla blew him a kiss and winked into the projector. "Take good care of Mekt for me – I'll see you soon!"

"I will. See you soon, Ayla."

The image flickered away, and after a moment's pause he turned to the doorway. When his eyes moved upwards he started in surprise. Saturn Girl unfolded her arms and walked over to him from her vigil at the door, her expression gentle.

"She's growing fast."

"Mmm," he sighed noncommittally.

"Lightning Lad, if you want to go see them so badly, all you have to do is say. I'm sure the others will understand; whenever you want to go. Cham won't be fit for company for another day or so, and you've been working yourself to exhaustion since we got back yesterday – don't think I wouldn't figure that one out."

He appeared to miss her subtle joke. "I know." He sighed, and turned to look down at her from behind his hair. "I just… I should have been there."

She gave him a curious look and gestured for him to explain himself.

"If I had been with Cham, I would have known what the actridium was. We should have gone to help them as soon as the other three were down."

_Men_, she thought with a mental shake of the head. _Why_ _do they feel the need to blame themselves for everything? Or is it just the men _I_ know?_

Her face was completely serious as she took the two steps forward to stand right up against his chest.

"Garth," she whispered. "This was not your fault."

"I'm the leader."

"You're only human. I know you feel you have a massive burden to live up to," She paused to take his chin between her fingers and lift his face up so that his eyes could meet hers. "But you aren't Cosmic Boy – you're completely different. You can't compare: and nobody does."

He gave a sort of half laugh, half sigh. "Come on, you and I both know that isn't true."

"Nobody you should care about."

His eyes flickered to a stop in her eyes after having been skipping around the room. That wasn't a comment he had expected to hear from her, and when he looked at her face he could see why she had said something so harsh. The strain written into her features let him know just how much she wanted him to see that what she was saying was the truth. He took in a deep breath and forced down all the plaguing doubts; allowing himself to really listen to what she was telling him.

And once he had, he couldn't think of anything to say in reply. His right hand came up to trace the line of her jaw as it was clenched with her gritted teeth, feeling it relaxing beneath his gentle fingertips. He could feel the tremor rippling through her body when the cold metal of his fingers touched her bare skin, but after a moment her own hand came up to intertwine her fingers with his.

Her voice was a whisper into his thumb as she held his hand against her lips. "What else is bothering you?"

Did she read his mind – or did she just read him? Since there was no way to tell, he decided that she knew exactly what he was worried about and just wanted to hear it from his mouth.

"It's still just… not easy, you know, seeing her like that. I mean, she's…"

Her other hand fell onto his shoulder as her grip on his mechanical hand tightened, and she looked him right in the eye. "I know."

They smiled gently for a moment before his stomach rumbled loudly into the silence. He looked at her with a rueful grin, to see that she was smiling with an almost secretive amusement.

"Hungry?"

"Oh, yeah."

--

Breakfast was a solemn affair: even the excitement the other Legionnaires felt at seeing Superman again after a two week absence was tainted with the sour mood pervading the entire headquarters like a black fog.

The calls began soon after nine, and the non-resident Legionnaires crashing at HQ after yesterday's taxing mission had offered to take them in order to let Cham's closer friends stay behind and wait for the update the doctors had promised.

It came just after ten thirty, and had four of the ten Legionnaires in the ops room leaping haphazardly at the control desk in one great flurry of motion. Lightning Lad reached it first and had to scoop Bouncy, Invisible Kid and Cosmic Boy off of the keyboard where they had landed in order to open the video line.

A middle-aged woman with deep maroon hair stared at them from the giant central screen. She had premature wrinkles on her inhumanly pale face and grey streaks in her hair, as well as a withered look in her eyes and a stern, serious set to her lips.

"Good morning, Lightning Lad. I am Dr. Karina Makinthol, Head of Protonics and Restoration Technology on Medicus 1."

"Are you treating Cham?"

She answered Superman's question with a shake of her head. "No, I'm not. Chameleon Boy is still being operated on as we speak, but Dr. Dox has asked me to speak to you personally."

There was a sudden grip on Superman's arm, and he looked down to see Saturn Girl standing there with both hands clamped fiercely around his bicep, her face drawn and completely white. Worry flashed through him and he quickly pulled the small woman in against his side, wrapping his right arm all the way around her body. He had been expecting trembling to go along with the shock on her face, but she was deathly still against him, eyes transfixed on the screen.

"Wait," Cosmic Boy's voice had a hard edge to it as he stalked closer to the viewing screen. "I thought you said 'the best of the best' were treating Cham. Wouldn't that be _you_?"

"In ordinary circumstances, yes. But in this particular case one of our research scientists has demanded that he treat Chameleon Boy personally. He developed the new technology, and I can promise you, Cosmic Boy, that you will find no finer doctor to treat your friend in this, or any other known galaxy."

Cosmic Boy grumbled, but seemed appeased and backed away once more.

"Do you know how long it'll be before they're done?" Invisible Kid moved to take Cos's place standing beside Lightning Lad, with his leanly muscled arms folded demandingly across his chest.

"Not much longer." Dr. Makinthol asserted. She sighed and looked suddenly begrudging; glancing behind her as if someone standing there had just ordered her to do something she found extremely distasteful. "Do you… want me to explain the procedure to you?"

Lightning Lad looked around him at the other Legionnaires for their opinions. Invisible Kid and Shrinking Violet immediately gave him affirmative bobs of their heads, while Cosmic Boy, Superman, Phantom Girl and Timber Wolf walked over with assenting nods but cautious expressions on their faces. Bouncy and Triplicate Girl remained on the couch opposite the one newly vacated by Timber Wolf and Phantom Girl, but gave their agreement also. Saturn Girl followed at Superman's side, still holding his arm like a vice, but her face was blank and staring.

Lightning Lad gave her a second's more worried attention before turning back to the doctor waiting somewhat impatiently onscreen, and giving her permission to continue.

She nodded. "This new branch of regenicare, as I'm sure you've been informed, is superior to its predecessors in the field in that it is capable of doing more than just knitting separated tissue or bone back together. It generates new tissue to fill gaps created by the loss of whatever tissue was supposed to be there.

"In your friend's case, there was no such gap – so the first stage was to cut out the section of skin that had been infected by the actridium acid. That took almost no time at all, but the actual regeneration of the ligaments, muscles and, of course, skin that was damaged and had to be cut away takes significantly longer, as you have found out. The doctors have been operating for," She paused to glance down, presumably at some sort of chronometer. "Fourteen hours. As such my estimation is that it will be only another forty-five minutes to an hour before they are done."

Phantom Girl jumped forwards with a tense and anxious expression on her face. "And then we can see Cham?"

"Well. You may go _look_ at him, but I would imagine he will be allocated a few hours of recuperation and observation before you will be allowed to actually interact with him."

"Thank you, Doctor Makinthol," Lightning Lad said calmly. "For taking the time to talk to us. You can expect us at Medicus 1 at 11:45 this morning."

She gave a curt nod. "Very well. I will arrange an observation appointment. Goodbye."

The screen cut to black before the others could respond.

Lightning Lad immediately turned to Saturn Girl – still grasping Superman's arm like a lifeline, still staring blankly up at the screen that now flickered with the lava-lamp screensaver Bouncy had implemented a few weeks before. Within seconds he was across the room and lifting her limp body into his arms, taking her from a very surprised Superman.

The 21st century hero stared worriedly down at her wide, unfocused eyes. "Lightning Lad, is she okay?"

"She will be." He butted his friend's shoulder with his own and gave him a playful but slightly strained grin. "I'll take care of it."

The eight Legionnaires remaining in the room watched as the couple exited through the doors, and exchanged curious and concerned looks.

"With the cruiser out with the others," Timber Wolf spoke into the silence. "If we're going to be at Medicus 1 by 11:45 in that little ship we've got here, we're going to have to be outta this place by eleven at the latest."

"They'll be done by then," Phantom Girl declared with a definitive bob of her head.

Superman nodded and turned back from staring at the door. "Let's prep the ship."

* * *

**_...: 17 April, 3061 :…_**

* * *

There was a noise from outside her room, but she couldn't quite place it. Deeming the sound unimportant, she blocked it from her mind and concentrated harder on the task at hand.

She was so close. She _knew_ it. She had begun searching the galaxy a long way from home: thinking that if he was going to run away, he would run far, _far_ away in a bid to ensure he would not be found. It was extremely unlikely, if he did not want to be detected by the others, that even Timber Wolf or Superman would ever be able track him down.

But she was different; and he must have known that there was no way in the universe that she was just going to let him leave like that. And no way imaginable that she would not spend every free moment she had searching until she found him.

As far as that line of thinking was concerned, she was a little embarrassed at having been so foolish. Of course he knew she would search for him. And he knew that she would find him. So of course there would have been no point in going a long way away because she would certainly locate him in the end.

Of course he had stayed close by.

Her mind pulsed as she sat on her bed with her eyes closed. To anyone watching she would have looked as though she had fallen asleep sitting up. Her breathing was slow and steady; slower than waking breathing, and her heart thrummed in a rhythm more suited to sleep than consciousness. Her hands were clasped in her lap on the soft white fabric of her nightshirt, over her silky pink and white pinstriped bottoms. Her feet were bare, and both her boots and her slippers sat in her cupboard along with her clothes, uniform and earrings hanging from a special holder on the inside of the small wardrobe's metal door.

She was suddenly aware of someone's presence very close to her – closer than any of the other Legionnaires should have been. Her eyes flashed open and she saw, with some relief, Lightning Lad sitting opposite her. He had pulled her floating desk chair over beside the bed, and had his elbows on his knees and his chin resting on his fists. He wore baggy black pajama pants and an oversized white t-shirt that had the insignia of some band Bouncing Boy liked on the sleeve, and she surmised that he had either been on his way to bed or had come to check up on her from the movie marathon the others were running in the front room.

"Hello," she greeted softly.

"Hey," The redhead leaned in closer to her. "Are you alright?"

She closed her eyes once more as a tremble passed through her body.

No, she wasn't alright.

_No_, she wanted to say. _And I don't think I will be until I find him._

_No, I'm not alright. I'm not alright, Lightning Lad. I'm not okay – not at all. Please help me._

Instead she shuddered in a breath and shook her head. Within seconds of her completing the action, he had risen from his seat and landed beside her on the bed, holding her against his chest with her body cradled in his lap. She allowed a few tears to fall from behind closed eyelids onto the front of his shirt, unable to say anything, to do anything but hold the fabric of his shirt in her fists, and breathe.

"It's only been a few weeks," he said soothingly. "Give it time."

She nodded; though she hadn't really heard what he had said. When he pulled her back from his chest to look her in the eye, she had already gathered back some shreds of composure. The tears had stopped, and now dried in salty trails on her cheeks. He wiped them away with the thumb of his mechanical hand, and gave her a smile.

He stayed there much longer than he had originally intended: content to just hold her as her heartbeat and breathing rate slowed once more. He glanced over at the clock just before midnight and had to suppress his ensuing yawn.

"Bedtime, Imra," he whispered into her hair. When she made no move to acknowledge him, he climbed to his feet with her cradled against his chest. While balancing her in his left arm, he pulled down her bedcovers with his right, and laid her gently on the mattress. He pulled the covers back over her and kissed her forehead, noticing that her pink eyes had flickered open at some point and were watching him mutely.

He was at the door, his hand on the panel, when he turned back to look at her.

"Will you tell me? If," He couldn't look her in the eye. "When you find him?"

She was silent for one agonizing moment, her gaze falling to the side, before she looked back at him and nodded once, slowly.

He afforded her one joyless smile before exiting the room and leaving her alone in the silence.

* * *

_Please be here,_ she begged. _Please don't let me just be projecting your mind onto some stranger. I couldn't handle it…. Please… please…_

The door opened before her.

It took almost a minute for either of them to move. She was completely frozen; though she couldn't figure out why. It could have been surprise or shock, relief, anger, incredible sadness: anything, really. She had no control over her own emotions – when he had opened the door, he had somehow also torn apart the floodgates on her own tentatively controlled feelings and fears, and she was beginning to shake with the force of them striking like a desert storm in her head.

His paralysis was quite clearly from shock at first. He overcame it quickly and just watched her as her rampaging emotions flickered one by one across her face. As soon as she didn't look as though she was going to tip over the edge into a full-blown crying fit, he decided it was safe to do what he had wanted to the minute he had opened the door and seen her standing there with that heartbreakingly hopeful expression on her face.

He dove in and flung his arms around her.

With his face buried into the hair beside her eye, the pale gold tendrils there tickling his nose, he pressed his eyes shut and held her as tightly as he could.

"Saturn Girl, I'm glad you're here," he whispered.

She could only murmur something unintelligible into the side of his face in reply as she moved one hand across his back, grasping at the fabric of his shirt, while the fingers on her other hand were delving into his hair desperately: as if to assure themselves that he was real.

After a few seconds he moved backwards, pulling her back with him into the apartment, since she seemed to have no inclination to let go of him anytime soon, and public displays of affection had never been his style. He kicked the door shut and allowed her to keep hugging him – not particularly eager to let go of _her_ either.

"Brainy, you… idiot," she almost sobbed into his ear. "Why did you leave me like that?"

He winced. Now, he felt, was a good time to push her away from him, now that the spell had shattered, and as he did so another wave of remorse washed over him when he saw her face.

"You didn't even say goodbye," she turned to look at the floor, her eyes falling shut as she did so.

Guilt was by far his least favorite emotion. He felt himself fumbling uncomfortably under the weight of her presence, wishing he could just disappear into the floor. Maybe the kitchen would suffice.

He darted away and returned moments later with a glass of her favorite soda in his hand. When he offered it to her she took it wordlessly and, after a quick look around, walked over to sit on the couch.

He hovered nervously in the space she had vacated; completely out of his depth and unsure of what to do.

Until she looked up at him and patted the cushion beside her on the two-seater sofa. He wordlessly obeyed the invitation, surprised when she let her head fall onto his shoulder as soon as he was seated.

He was staring at his hands clasped nervously in his lap as he spoke. "You don't seem angry."

"Angry?"

"Yes, I thought…"

"You thought I would be mad at you?"

He nodded silently.

After a moment she leaned forward to put her drink on the glass table in front of them, and grasped his cheek with her palm, pulling his face around so she could look him in the eye.

"Brainy, I'm not mad at you for what you did. And I'm not mad at you for leaving. I'm disappointed that you left without saying goodbye to anybody, but I'm not cross: not at all."

She leaned in to kiss his cheek – unsurprised when he tensed and shifted uncomfortably. But the arm he put around her shoulders once she had pulled away did leave her somewhat dumbfounded.

"You're different already," she commented softly.

He shrugged. "When you live in the real world, with so much interaction with strangers and even acquaintances, it's difficult to remain aphephobic: even mildly so."

"The real world?"

"You know," He looked up and out of the window directly opposite them. "The Legion is its own world. It's different out here."

She swallowed, and gathered the courage to proffer the question that had been stinging the back of her throat like a thick acid for many long days.

"Is it a good different?"

There was a slight pause. "I'm not sure."

She savored the truthfulness in his voice. He hadn't yet had a chance to become an elegant white liar, and she hoped in her heart that he would never be tainted so by the 'real world'; that he would remain the Brainy she knew and loved so much – stubborn, arrogant, honorable, frank and honest.

"It's been difficult."

"Of course it has," She reached up to stroke his hair, finding the motion soothing for some reason, and enjoying that fact that Brainy was actually allowing her to touch him without making her feel guilty or invasive. "You know that… we all miss you, don't you?"

He nodded. "I would expect that of some of you. But you're exaggerating when you say 'all'."

She sighed, knowing he was right and that there was absolutely no way she could argue that point. "Some of them are glad you're gone, yes. The ones that didn't know you. The ones you didn't allow to know you."

At that point he visibly flinched, and she felt a stabbing of guilt in her stomach, but she wouldn't take back that statement for anything.

"You're right."

She nodded. "Of course."

A grin spread across his face and he turned to smile warmly at her. "It's great to see you again, Saturn Girl."

"And you. Do you," She paused uncertainly. "Do you know when you'll be coming back?"

"No."

The response was immediate and, for some reason, crushing. She swallowed again – painfully – and stared down at the floor. After a few minutes of complete silence, she turned her head slightly to look up at him from beneath her eyebrows.

"Superman left yesterday."

The abrupt change of subject brought him up short, and his head shot upwards to stare her in the face.

"Yesterday? What was he–"

"What was he waiting for?" she prompted gently. "You know what he was waiting for. The others are still waiting. Brainy," She lifted her legs up into a curled position, tucking her body in against his; pretending that she didn't notice the way he removed his arm from around her shoulders, or the way his whole body went rigid beneath her touch. Her words came out in pleading breaths. "Please come back. Please…?"

She was lifted into the air and carefully dumped on the couch the moment the final syllable left her lips. Brainy was striding away from her, towards the door. She blinked in shock. And then the door was open, and he was staring at her with his features smoothed into the mask that he had been wearing when they had first met in person.

"You…" He didn't seem to be able to string anything coherent together, and lapsed into poignant silence.

She rose to her feet – heartbroken and certain that the emotion was scarred blindingly across her face. She made it to the door sooner than she would have thought, too soon, and stood in front of the young man there staring stoically down at her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"I'm not ready."

"I know. I know," Her gaze turned pleading, and she reached for his hand. "I'm sorry, Brainy."

His arms both moved back to clasp behind his back: leaving her hand floating in the space where his had been.

She ignored the stinging in her chest and smiled wanly at him. "You know I'll be coming back to visit."

"I know," he echoed her earlier mantra with a somber nod.

Sadly she wondered if the regret she could see in his posture was nothing more than wishful thinking on her part.

* * *

**...: 16 February, 3063 :...**

* * *

The ship reached Medicus 1 with two minutes to spare, and the Legionnaires were scooted somewhat unceremoniously from the hatch and marched through the hallways by a visibly tense Lightning Lad and an inexplicably eager Saturn Girl.

They were met in the main entrance hall of the Protonics and Restoration Technology wing by Dr. Makinthol; who turned out to be an great deal taller in person than she had appeared onscreen. The commanding presence they had all sensed from talking to her over the video connection came flooding into full force when the woman towering at least half a foot over Superman and considerably more than a foot over Shrinking Violet glided over and shook Lightning Lad's hand with what may have been an air of disdain or an attempt to cover up the fact that she knew she had better places to be and more important people to see.

"Welcome back to Medicus 1, Lighting Lad," she greeted in a monotone. "And the rest of the Legion. Your appointment is booked but I cannot stay and escort you."

"Well, that's alright," Lightning Lad asserted, managing to keep any snappy comments he had lurking beneath his calm façade about her less-than-welcoming expression and attitude to himself. "We know where it is. Thanks for arranging this."

"Yes, it was no problem. Goodbye."

She was gone before any of them could form a reply, with her white coat swirling dramatically and ominously behind her as she went.

True to his word, Lightning Lad managed to get them from the entrance hall to the observation room booked for them, with arguably minimal help from the hospital station staff, Cosmic Boy, Shrinking Violet, Invisible Kid and – to his slight dismay – Superman and his x-ray vision.

The patient observation rooms, Superman thought errantly, were similar in format to the exhibit windows they had in natural history museums in his time. The observation room itself was quite small and neither well-lit nor dark, with a cushioned metal bench in the middle of the room and further ones fixed to all three metal walls. The final fourth wall opposite the door was entirely composed of glass, and through it they could see a medium sized private hospital room consisting of a small counter filled presumably with medical supplies, a drip stand, a comfy-looking chair, one comparatively luxurious hospital bed and one sleeping Durlan.

Cham's left arm was heavily bandaged, laid out slightly from the rest of his body and held in position with a metal frame brace fastened around his stomach and chest. He wore the standard grayish hospital gown, and his orange skin was pale but still the most vibrantly colored thing in the room.

Phantom Girl launched herself across the room and straight into the window as soon as she caught sight of him. With her nose pressed against the glass, fingers tense and crushed against its cool surface, it was obvious to the other Legionnaires behind her that she was using all of her restraint not to plunge forwards straight into the glass.

"Are you the phaser?"

Phantom Girl's head – along with those the other nine people in the room – whipped around to stare at the new entry. Obviously a doctor, the man had abnormally grey skin, piercing violet eyes and a distinct lack of hair. He was smiling congenially at them and she decided in an instant to be nice.

"Yes, I am. Why?"

"I wouldn't try getting through that window. It's charge-protected against any assault of that kind."

She jerked quickly away from the glass, choosing to ignore the doctor's, Lighting Lad's and Invisible Kid's immediate chuckles. Once he had gotten control of himself, the middle-aged man still hovering by the door cleared his throat and apologized with a blatantly contrite expression.

"My name is Erèn Niona, and it's very nice to meet you. My daughter is an avid Legion fan. She's going to kill me when she finds out I met you without her."

His simultaneously amused and alarmed expression sent Violet into a round of snorting laughter, while the others smiled sympathetically at his plight; having gotten used to hearing very similar confessions.

Cosmic Boy sighed. "You aren't the doctor treating Chameleon Boy?"

"I _am_ treating him… or I _was_ operating on him. But I'm not his doctor, no."

"Are we ever going to get to talk to him?"

Dr. Niona looked a little sheepish – and a little scared. Cosmic Boy's expression showed that he was clearly far less than pleased.

"I'm not sure." His eyes flitted up to the ceiling while he reached up to rub the nape of his neck, while walking around to stare through the window at the sleeping Cham, standing beside Phantom Girl. "Dr. Dox didn't seem very enthusiastic about meeting you."

Lightning Lad snorted. "You can tell him that if he's done something illegal we promise not to throw his butt in prison until _after_ he's released Cham."

There was a low chuckle from the opposite end of the room.

Lighting Lad's first thought was that it did not belong to any of the Legionnaires that he knew were currently in there with him; nor to the doctor who was still peering with Phantom Girl through the glass in at the sleeping Chameleon Boy.

His second preceded a hectic flurry of thoughts by less than milliseconds. The message careered down the motor neurons from his ears to the waiting receptors in his brain faster than light could race, and almost instantaneously he realized that he knew exactly who that voice belonged to.

He turned so slowly that he was the very last person in the room to end up facing the young man standing in the doorway, his strong voice fighting a tremble.

"Brainy?"


	6. Breathe into Me II

**Huge wait, I know. Once school started, fanfiction kinda had to fall by the wayside. I'll be better from now on, I promise!!**

**_Warning_: _None_.**

* * *

**_.: Part 2 - Breathe into Me :._**

Breathe your life into me,  
I can feel you, I'm falling, falling faster,  
Breathe your life into me,  
I still need you.

_-: Breathe into Me, Red_

* * *

SIX

* * *

The first person to react, logically enough, was Saturn Girl. She walked calmly forwards to embrace him before the others could even finish their blinking. And Brainy would have relaxed down into her hug – had he not been wound so tightly. He was tense because Cosmic Boy was the only one in the room beside Dr. Niona who didn't look shocked.

He looked, to utilize a perfectly blunt Earth expression, frelling pissed off.

The man crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his weight centrally onto both feet, into a quintessentially mammalian pose signifying dominance and superiority. Brainy found himself calculating the danger his former leader presented, and had just decided that his odds weren't that great when Cosmic Boy began to speak in a slow voice.

"If you aren't the doctor who's treating Chameleon Boy, space help me…"

Brainy's held breath came out in a great whoosh of air resembling a laugh. "Don't have a coronary, Cosmic Boy. I am Cham's doctor."

It was right then that Phantom Girl let out a sound that sounded something like the shrieking noise the rehydrator made that time when Bouncing Boy put a dried-out starfish in it, and something like the mating call of the Imskian pendenta azura bird…

"Eeeeeeeyagh!!!"

… followed by the abrupt launch of her petite frame across the room. She hit him fully in the gut and sent him staggering helplessly back through the doorway with the force of her attack. The only reason he managed to stay upright was the hand than he had rapidly curled around the doorframe moments before the collision.

She began to scream with her face buried in his chest, "Brainy! Sprocking hell where have you been?! What are you doing at Medicus 1? Why didn't you ever call us?? Why did you never bother with wrapping paper? You… you're squishy. Sprock, sprock, sprock, sprock…"

She dissolved into little cussing gasps as she ran completely out of air.

For his part, hysterical women had been on his list of Things to Avoid pretty much his entire life, and he could think of nothing to do but what seemed to work with Saturn Girl when she was upset, and usually shaking like Phantom Girl was now. He put one hand on the back of her head and one at the small of her back and rocked her gently.

However, in this case, it seemed she was beyond consolation. She pulled back the moment she had air in her lungs once more and slapped him so hard across the face he didn't actually feel the pain for a few seconds.

"Ow," he mumbled, reaching up to cup his offended cheek. "I think that was uncalled for."

"_Uncalled for_???" He could sense, more than hear, a scream lilting at the fringes of her voice. "I think it was _perfectly_ called for. I think that I missed you more than I care to admit in front of present company and you know what? I _hate_ missing people. It's the most horrible feeling ever. And it's your fault, you stupid green jackass."

There were a few minutes of silence. Brainy was trying to come to terms with what he had just been so loudly informed of, and Phantom Girl was still reeling from the force of the two years' worth of bottled emotions she had just hurled at the person she had been planning to greet civilly and calmly when they finally met again.

She found herself hurtling herself at him once more – but this time she took care to be gentle, and this time the words that came out of her mouth were so quiet that even Brainy had difficulty picking them out.

"I missed you so much. And I love that you're still green."

He chuckled slightly and reassumed his Comforting Hysterical Women pose.

"I missed you too, Phantom Girl. And I love that you're still so loud."

"Loud?"

"Well," He had the grace to look sheepish. "You… um,"

"Relax. I get it."

They shared a smile and a quiet moment; time to reassess their feelings for the person standing there in their arms, to sort through the rush of emotions that can only come with the reuniting of two people who have gone through more together in six years than most people could possibly experience in a lifetime.

But time always has a way of catching up with you. Now Phantom Girl was sitting in the Legion's private waiting room, staring in the general direction of the chronometer on the wall, wondering. Most of the nine other Legionnaires present had all but demanded a private talk with Brainy after her strange, overemotional outburst in the observation room, and so far only five had done so.

She had listened in on Lightning Lad's, and knew that he had been completely aware of exactly where Brainy had been, what he'd been doing, and _how_ he'd been doing – via Saturn Girl, who had not only known all of the above but had actually been visiting Brainy regularly for almost as long as he had been gone.

At first Phantom Girl had felt something she, perhaps mistakenly, had taken to be anger. As the information had had time to settle in, and more of the conversation was heard from Brainy's end, she realized that they had only been trying to do what Brainy needed to have had done at the time. Even Lightning Lad, she had discovered, had not been allowed to see their friend.

Now she was feeling just a strange, discomfiting, floating contemplativeness. Some of her distress was almost certainly rooted in the sheer shock of Brainy's current appearance.

'Shock' was simply not a word strong enough to convey what she had felt on that groundbreaking day in the space surrounding Tarran 24. After fighting one of her oldest and closest friends, her confidant and advisor; her baby brother.

After being sort-of-killed, and sort-of-resurrected what she was later informed to have been about six standard minutes later.

After watching said baby brother shooting out of space in a beam of light like an angel, pieces of bioarmor floating carelessly off of a completely organic, pale green-fleshed body.

No, 'shock' couldn't quite cover it. Of course, that had been over two years ago, back when she had still had a bet going with Bouncing Boy, beginning with the notion that their resident genius was never joining to top five feet three inches: that mark moving steadily upwards as she was proved more and more wrong, and she lost more and more credits to her teammate over time.

To her knowledge, he had sprouted almost eight inches in that year and a half Superman had been gone, and, unless her guess now was way off, in the two years since she had last seen him her 'little' brother had added at least another three or four more to his score. When Superman had led him outside a few minutes ago, their former scientist was just inches from the top of the Man of Steel's head.

She owed Bouncy so much money.

He had never been well built, her Brainy. She remembered the little string bean he had been when he'd first arrived for Legion tryouts all those years ago. If his skin hadn't been glinting like that in the harsh stadium lighting, she would have been afraid he would snap if touched. Even now he was nowhere near as bulky as the other guys in the Legion, but he had filled out, though had not yet – she smiled – grown into those ears.

His eyes were a deeper green than she remembered, his eyebrows a much darker shade than his blond hair, those three circles on his forehead lighter and more prominent. Perhaps his skin had darkened in tone; she wouldn't have been able to tell. His eyes still held that secretive danger – she had never known anyone with such a power as his to make one feel so foolish and inferior with just a passive gaze, someone who had such wisdom and knowledge held behind that, admittedly haggard, boyish exterior, even through what she realized now had just been some kind of vision-enhancing screens.

Before she knew it, it had been almost an hour since they had arrived at the hospital station, and Cosmic Boy was asking Brainy if he wanted to rejoin the Legion. It came as a considerable shock to everyone when he gave a very firm 'no'.

Phantom Girl was pretty sure there had been a squawk from Shrinking Violet's direction, but Lightning Lad was a lot more coherent.

And loud.

"Are you kidding?? We _need_ you, Brainy! Do you have any idea how long it's been since the lab blew up? The fire department are getting lazy!"

Saturn Girl elbowed him in the ribs, and after a little pained exhale, his tone softened.

"Come on, Brainy."

"I don't think it's a good idea," he replied firmly.

If there was ever a worse moment for a communicator to sound, it was then. The looks of horrified surprise that everyone in the room directed towards Cosmic Boy's ring as he lifted it to his face could have frozen magma.

"Cosmic Boy," he answered.

"Alright, Cos, I don't know what you guys are doing up there, but we have a fairly serious problem down here on Planet Earth."

"Why are you calling me?"

"Um, were you not listening? Problem!"

"Sun Boy, why are you calling _me_?"

"Oh, Lightning Lad threatened death to anyone who called him for the next few hours."

Lightning Lad shrunk under the reprimanding stares of his teammates, and reluctantly opened the connection on his ring.

"'Kay, Sun Boy we'll be there ASAP."

The blond Legionnaire nodded and faded from view, and Lightning Lad turned to the others.

"Right, visiting hours are now over. Please get to your nearest cruiser right now."

The others ran from the room, leaving just Lightning Lad and Brainy staring at each other.

"Look, B5–"

"You need to go."

The older man narrowed his eyes and pointed one finger in the Brainiac's direction. "This is not over."

"I'll contain my excitement. Go."

* * *

"Not that we aren't grateful, and all, for you busting us outta that hellhole, but would it really be too much trouble for you to share your plans with us?"

The Emerald Empress was looking deadly in a deep green sleeveless minidress with silver metal bands around her upper arms and chest, sheer pastel green fabric forming the sleeves and detailing around her waist, just above where her hands were set on her hips. Her boots went high, up to her knees, and were the same shade as the filmy fabric on her shoulders. Her face was once again heavily made up in black and green, and her long, impossibly thick hair was brushed glossy and pulled into a single thick braid that swung like rope down to her thighs.

"It would not be too much trouble, but there is no need for me to share my plans with you," the deep monotone voice replied.

"If you don't need us, you wouldn't be keeping us as your prisoners. So if you do, why did you wait so long to get us out of prison?"

"Universal conquest is not something to be rushed, fleshling. I had to ensure my success before setting the plan in motion."

"'Universal conquest', huh?" She took a few more steps forward, turning and half-sitting on the counter of the desk at which their rescuer was working on some sort of digiprint. "Like that's never been tried before. So, what is this oh-so-spectacular plan?"

"Your awareness is not required at this point."

The Empress's eyes flashed angrily. "Excuse me, Tinhead, but it was you who recruited us, remember? We're a part of this team because you wanted us here."

"Team?" He turned to look at her. "You will not refer to me as 'Tinhead' again, if you have any self-preservation instincts. Call me Brainiac."

Her eyes widened slightly as the android turned his attention back to the digiprints on the screen.

"Our first move is simple…"

When she tore her gaze up away from his cold face, she couldn't restrain a grin as she recognized the sleek, bulky form of the Legion's cruiser rotating on the screen in blue-printed analysis.

"Remove all those in our way."

* * *

It was less than an hour after they left Medicus 1 that a group of five Legionnaires were lazing around the HQ rec room – some staring more suspiciously than others at the newest entry as he lounged on the blue sofa beside Lightning Lad.

After they had returned to Earth, Sun Boy had briefed them quickly and sent them on their ways. Lightning Lad had been forced to pass on the missions when Mekt had called unexpectedly and demanded to know why he had stood him up. With their leader dashing frantically off to the port to pick up his waiting brother, Cosmic Boy, Timber Wolf and Triplicate Girl had gone to answer the call for help from the 5th District Artifact Museum, while Superman, Phantom Girl, Invisible Kid, Shrinking Violet and Bouncing Boy had gone in three teams to aid in the final transference of Merreck Vayne and a few other inmates back to Takron-Galtos.

The latter five were eyeing Mekt with more than a little distrust. Phantom Girl in particular was quite openly glaring at him.

"So…" Bouncing Boy tried to break the silence. "How've you been, Mekt?"

Mekt shrugged. "Good. Can't wait to get some real food though. You can't imagine how crappy prison food is 'til you've lived on it."

Invisible Kid attempted a laugh; wincing when it morphed of its own accord into a cough, while Phantom Girl's scowl deepened. She had yet to pull her blazing eyes from the older Ranzz's face.

"Got any plans now that you're out?" Superman enquired.

"Get a job. A real job," Mekt added as an afterthought. "Not sure I was ever cut out for that whole 'superhero' thing. But first I think I wanna spend some time with Mom and Dad, and Ayla."

"They'd like that," his brother said definitively.

They fell silent once more. From above their heads there was a slight ticking noise from a converter.

Twiddling her thumbs desperately, Shrinking Violet was very tempted to just shrink down so that nobody could see her and make a quick escape. She would rather be burning her fingertips on the soldering iron trying to fix the cruiser's carbon filter than sitting in here listening to the building's machinery whir. Perhaps contemplating her talk with Brainy two hours before would suffice.

Nothing could be more painful than this silence.

Her fingers laced into one large fist as she remembered what she had said. It didn't take much – she had said precious little. If it wouldn't have drawn so much unwelcome attention to her right then, she would have smacked her own forehead in exasperation.

She had so much she had been planning to say. At first she had been mapping out how to communicate her anger and resentment for his departure in painstaking, biting detail, but, as time had passed, she had whittled her speech down into all she really wanted to say to Brainy – and that was exactly how she felt for him in her heart. Even that had come with its difficulties. Eloquence had never been her forte, and particularly around crushes she frequently found words eluding her.

That may have been a key reason for what she had actually ended up saying on the Med station instead of her nicely rehearsed speech.

Perhaps a large chunk of problem she had with expressing affection were the annoying slang connotations each word she could have used had. 'I like you' was childish, vague – just plain weak. That wasn't what she wanted to say. But then the next stage up…

'I love you'. Way too strong. She didn't love him; of that she was certain. She had only really been spending time with him for the second half of their war with Imperiex, and even that time had been mostly occupied with missions and vital projects. No – it was a crush. But how did she actually say that? 'I crush you'?

Clearly, she had thought, she needed to invent a new word, because it was pretty lame to just tell the guy she had a crush on him. It was thus that the term 'loke' was born in a moment of inner humor. And it was thus that she had replied to Brainy's bashful greeting with an exuberant, desperate;

"Brainy, I loke you!"

His face was branded into her memory. He had clearly had no idea how to react to that. Confusion, surprise, alarm and further indefinable emotions had jumped onto his features, leaving her to mentally scream in dismay in awkward silence.

"Um–"

"And by that, I mean, uh…" But, really, that was what she had meant. Only there was no way in the universe he could possibly understand what she had just blurted out. Why did he had to have shocked her so much appearing unexpectedly at the station? She was making an idiot of herself.

Did she dare explain?

"I mean…"

Not right then. Right then her hands were trembling with her sudden desire to embrace him, and embrace him she did. She pitched forwards into his chest, wrapping her arms as far as they would go around his midriff, and burying her head into the hollow of his shoulder.

He was so much taller than she remembered, she thought as her fingers tightened in the fabric of his white lab coat. She was no giant, granted, but she barely crested his shoulder level in her heels. It was strange to feel soft muscle and skin beneath her arms and cheek compared to the supple, metallic feel of his skin before. She buried her face further into the bunched muscle at the front of his shoulder, just to be able to feel it better.

After a few moments he responded to her hug, and she was more shocked than pleased for a moment to find that his reaction was actually to hug her back, rather than to remove her from his chest as he had always done on the precious few other occasions.

Just for a moment.

"What I meant to say was that I am so happy to see you, Brainy," she corrected against his chest, emphasizing the 'so' perhaps a little too much.

"I missed you too, Vi," he said softly into her hair; and she thought perhaps there was a smile on his face as they stood there in the quiet hallway, just holding each other.

"Well, as much fun as it's been sitting here feeling awkward and watching your pet Phantom glare at me…"

Shrinking Violet was pulled violently back to the present, and noticed that at some point during her small blackout she had become the only person in the room left seated.

"I'm pretty excited to go see Mom and Dad, so… can we be taking off?" Mekt finished.

Lightning Lad nodded and grinned. "Sure. I'll see you guys in a few days, 'kay?"

After the small chorus of goodbyes, and the two Ranzz brothers had left the room, Invisible Kid folded his arms and turned to Phantom Girl, whose face was still pressed into a slight residual frown.

"Right, Phantom, what was that?"

She snapped her attention to him. "What was what?"

"I thought you were about to set the guy's head on fire with your demon stare. Either you really hate him, or you guys had a _night_ and he never called you back…"

"Shut up, Kid," she snapped, wishing she had something she could hurl at his head right then. "I just don't trust him. Why Lightning Lad thought it was okay to bring him into our headquarters I–"

"How about; 'cause he's his brother'?" Bouncing Boy offered. "What do you have against the guy anyway?"

Her scowl returned and she folded her arms. "Because of _him_ the Fatal Five almost kidnapped my mother. Nevermind all the times he's personally attacked us, made Lightning Lad _quit_ the Legion, and – oh yeah! – he was Imperiex's personal lapdog?!"

With a little shake of his head, Superman walked forwards and put a soothing hand on her shoulder. "That's in the past, now. He voluntarily went to Takron-Galtos to pay for everything he's done, and now he wants to start anew. Just give him a chance."

She narrowed her eyes up at him. "You're too trusting, Clark."

"Ma and Pa always said you gotta see the best in people, so they can see the best in themselves. He can't be a better person if you keep dragging him down to what he was before."

Phantom Girl's lips twitched angrily for a few moments before she playfully slapped his arm. "Damn you and your logic," she mumbled. "Fine. I'll try to be nice."

Superman grinned. "That's all I ask."

"It's an awful lot to ask of her…" came a singsong voice from behind Phantom Girl.

She wheeled around and smacked the air just above her eye level, and was rewarded with a wincing yelp.

"Shut _up_, Kid!"

* * *

"Mom and Dad are gonna be seriously happy to see you," Lightning Lad commented excitedly. "You should have seen their faces when I told them you were getting parole."

"Let me guess… horror?"

"Very funny."

The brothers were walking along the sandy brick walkway up to their new family farmhouse, a slight breeze whistling through the clear air around them. The new house was at the top of a hill, and the side they were climbing up from the hangar happened to be the very steep one.

"So what's new with them?"

"Well, Dad was worried that the korn crop wasn't going to give a big enough yield last time I talked to him. Mom just kept asking how I thought you were doing." The redhead stopped walking for a moment. "By the way, if she asks what prison was like–"

"Lie?"

"Maybe just leave out the worst bits."

"Got it." They started moving again, and Mekt suddenly began giving off a nervous air, twisting his fingers on the clasp of his jacket's waistband. "And, what about Ayla?"

Garth watched his feet as he trod up the path. "We filled her in on everything she missed. She seemed… upset with what happened to us."

"Damn," Mekt breathed. "I can't believe I messed everything up so bad."

"Hey," Garth put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Yeah, you made one heck of a mess, but it's nothing we can't fix together. I mean – look at what we did for Ayla."

"You're right. Hey," Mekt grinned. "Since when did you get so wise?"

"Grew up."

"Right."

"Plus I think I've been hanging around Brainy too long."

"Yeah, so what happened with the green meanie anyway?"

Lightning Lad sighed. "I don't even know. He– whoa, what the _sprock_ is that!?"

The brothers came to an abrupt halt and stared up at the blackish wall of smoke that could be seen hovering over the farmhouse as they moved over the top of the hill.

Mekt instantly broke into a flat-out sprint right behind Garth, who had taken off flying. When the older man rounded the side of the house he joined his brother in staring in total shock at the sight before them.

The top right corner at the back of the house had been blown completely out. The metal braces within the walls and floor protruded like broken ribs; glowing burning orange, while the polywood making up the framework beneath the brick was immersed in leaping, dancing flames. Debris was shorn across the grass all around them. The sheet of smoke wafted from the inferno, acrid and thick enough to choke on. Mekt threw his sleeve over his mouth and nose and yelled up at Garth, floating to his left, without taking his eyes off the damage.

"What room was that?!"

"Ayla's," the Legionnaire replied in quiet horror.

He was soaring suddenly for the house, trying to shield his face from the flames while looking for any sign of his family.

"Ayla! Mom, Dad?! Are you in here?"

"Garth!"

The young man whipped around at the female voice – just barely audible over the deafening crackle of the fire. A woman with cropped red hair approached from far away from them, staggering up the gentler slope of the hill.

"Mom!" Mekt shouted, running forwards and closing the gap between them in an instant.

Garth flew over and reached the pair just in time to hear his mother whimpering his brother's name as she embraced him fitfully.

"Mom, what happened?" he demanded, landing behind Mekt and hurrying closer. "Are Dad and Ayla okay?"

His mother was beyond speech, and could only grab her older son's hand and drag him away. The three of them started running, and Garth pulled ahead when he realized that she was headed for the barn.

He slipped through the door and looked around frantically, calling for his father and sister. Soon enough he was rewarded with the sound of faint whimpering.

"Ayla?!"

He pitched forwards around a silo and caught sight of his father kneeling on the ground with his hand stretched out before him, beckoning like one might to a small animal to something Garth couldn't see. He followed the grayed man's line of vision and caught sight of a small figure curled into a protective ball in the crevice between another towering silo and its control station. Her crying made his stomach churn.

"Dad, what's wrong?"

His father turned to look worriedly into his eyes. "She won't let me near. I don't know what happened."

"Ayla?" Garth said softly, dropping to his knees just feet from where his sister was hiding. "What's wrong? Talk to me."

He received no reply.

"Hey, monkey-child!"

Her head rose slightly from its place in her arms, the shadows fading slightly on her delicate features.

"Mekt?"

Mekt grinned, crouching down slightly in front of Garth and to his left. "Yeah, it's me. What, no hug for your biggest brother?"

She replied by launching from her concealment with a cry and throwing herself into Mekt's arms. Her delicate hands dove into his shocking white hair, face burying in his shoulder.

Her twin could only stare in shock. He couldn't summon any words, his heart thundering and his breathing growing ragged. This was not the Ayla he had talked to yesterday. This Ayla was much taller than that Ayla, had the slender hands and arms of a young woman – not a preteen girl.

And when she pulled her face from Mekt's shoulder to stare fearfully at him, he saw that _this_ Ayla could not have been a day younger than sixteen.

* * *

"You're sure this is safe?"

"If you wanted 'safe', Miss Luthor, you should not have sought my specific brand of help."

"How comforting," she muttered, twisting her wrists within their bonds. "Are the chains really necessary?"

"The voltages that will soon be passing through your body will be high enough to send you flying off into space, or possibly just give your cells enough kinetic energy to shake you to pieces." Dr. Londo eyed the extensive cuffs all over the young woman's body. "I think you will be grateful for the restraints in a few moments."

"Well hurry up, will you? I'm getting seriously uncomfortable, here," she snapped.

"Watch your tone,"

"Don't lecture me, Paps," Alexis hissed venomously. "You're using me just as much as I'm using you, so don't pretend you have any sort of authority here. Just get this done."

"Very well. Brace yourself, Miss Luthor."

"Yeah, yeah,"

Calculating green eyes watched the scientist as he walked across the small gangway to the control panel at the opposite side of the room.

Her feet were strapped with heavy metal bands to the base of a circular device she would bet her right arm had once been a transmatter gate, with similar metal cuffs around each knee and thigh, her hips, waist, chest, wrists and neck. To each side of the former gate were connected the in-port cables for the titanic mains generators all around them. Within a cloth band wrapped loosely around her chest was a small, elongated spherical charm, pressing icily against her skin. It was bright blue in color, with navy swirls writhing inside it like tiny raging storms, and it was set in a glossy gold base.

When Dr. Londo heaved down the five giant levers beside him at the control panel with great wrenching, pounding sounds, the charm began to glow white blue, illuminating her face and torso.

It took a few seconds, but once the current from the generators was flowing through the cables, cuffs, the circular gate and the sizzling stone on her chest, Alexis was screaming so loud that her voice and its monstrous echoes almost drowned out the sounds of the machinery surrounding her, rippling into the night as a smile crept to the corner of Mar Londo's mouth.


End file.
